"Perfect Cell!"
The name was a curse on Gohan's lips, a nightmare made flesh. In the visions Rhode had shown him, Cell was a future threat, an apocalyptic enemy from another timeline entirely. Why was he here, now?
"Mr. Rhode, how can this be?!" Gohan's head whipped toward his mentor, desperate for an explanation. The answer he found was worse than any confusion.
Rhode's face was alight with a cold, satisfied smile. The expression of a trap sprung perfectly.
"Mr. Rhode...?" Gohan's voice faltered. He took an instinctive step back, the trust he had built over a year of grueling, life-sharing training crumbling in an instant. Rhode had warned him. More than once. I might not be a good person. The words echoed, now poisoned with new meaning.
"Alright, Gohan," Rhode said, his tone almost cheerful. "You've had your fun training. Now, show me what you've learned. This one's just an appetizer. Beat him, and you can face me." He gestured casually at the ruined city around them. "Otherwise... well, this world ends. Simple as that."
The casual dismissal of all life, spoken with a smile, was more terrifying than any roar. And Gohan knew, with a sickening certainty, that Rhode could do it. He had felt that power, day after day. It was absolute.
Was it all a lie? The thought was a knife in his chest.
"Oh?" Cell's voice cut through the tension, dripping with amusement. He had been watching the exchange with obvious delight. "A lover's quarrel? How entertaining! By all means, resolve your issues. I'll be happy to dispose of the survivor." The perfect being had all the time in the world, and this drama was delicious.
"Hmph."
Rhode moved. One instant he was meters away, the next he was behind Cell, golden aura flaring for the briefest instant. His leg swept out in a brutal kick.
BOOM!
Cell's perfect form became a meteor, crashing through building after building in a cacophony of destruction.
Gohan stood frozen, his mind reeling. He attacked Cell. Why? Is he... good? Bad? What is happening?
BANG!
The rubble erupted. Cell shot out, his composure shattered, his face a mask of enraged disbelief. "YOU DARE?!" He lunged, his speed blinding.
Rhode didn't flinch. He sidestepped the attack with contemptuous ease, and as Cell passed, his hand lashed out in a backhand that sent the perfect creature cratering into the ground.
Rhode's senses had already cataloged Cell's power. Around ten billion, maybe a touch less. Strong, yes. A planet-shattering threat. But to Rhode, whose base power now exceeded 300 million and whose Super Saiyan boost was perfectly controlled, it was simply... insufficient. The androids of this world had been broken before Cell absorbed them; he was a perfect creation built on a flawed, weakened foundation.
Rhode walked over to the stunned Cell, raised a foot, and placed it calmly on the creature's head, pressing down. The ground groaned, fissures spreading like a spiderweb across the landscape.
"Cell," Rhode's voice was calm, conversational. "I don't think you understand the situation." He applied more pressure, and Cell sank deeper into the earth. "I ask. You answer. No tricks. Or I erase you."
Defeated, humiliated, his perfect invincibility shattered in seconds, Cell could only babble the truth. "I-I came from another world! In my timeline, 17 and 18 vanished! I killed Trunks, stole his Time Machine, and came here to become perfect!"
At this point, he glanced up at Rhode, the foot pressing down on him, a flicker of genuine fear crossing his features. He continued, his voice hurried.
"When I was traveling through the timelines, something went wrong with the machine. I landed in a world where... where Dr. Gero was a good person. Can you believe it? That world's Android 17 nearly killed me. I barely escaped with my life, jumped back into the machine, and ended up here."
A spark of manic excitement lit his eyes. "And then! I found 17 and 18 here, already beaten within an inch of their lives! I absorbed them and became perfect! I don't know who my benefactor was, but I owe them everything!"
A world where Trunks was killed... A good Dr. Gero... Super Android 17... The pieces clicked in Rhode's mind. He knew his own main timeline well—Gero was reformed there, and the androids would never be created. But other branches? Anything was possible. Cell's terrified babbling was a window into a multiverse of chaos.
And that final, pointed remark about a "benefactor"? Rhode's eyes narrowed. Cell was clever, even in fear. Trying to curry favor.
"Heh." Rhode's lips curled. "The 'good person' you're thanking... that was me." He saw Cell's eyes widen. "I'm not from this world either. So, fellow traveler to traveler, I'll give you a chance." He lifted his foot from Cell's head and pointed a finger at Gohan, who stood frozen, a maelstrom of confusion and dawning horror on his face.
"See that boy? Eliminate him. Do that, and I'll not only accept you, I'll make you stronger. We'll go to that world you mentioned, the one with the Super Android 17, and you can have your revenge. What do you say?"
Cell's eyes blazed with renewed, predatory life. "Just eliminate that little Gohan?" He climbed to his feet, dusting himself off with newfound swagger. "How about I destroy this whole pathetic planet along the way?"
"As you wish. If you can." Rhode's shrug was indifferent. He rose into the air, floating above the battlefield, his face a mask of delighted anticipation. He looked down at Gohan, his voice carrying clearly. "You heard him, Gohan. You don't want this world destroyed because you were too weak, do you?"
He spread his arms wide, a ringmaster introducing the main event. "Bring me delight!"
"You BASTARD!"
The words, the betrayal, the sheer, casual cruelty of it all—it shattered Gohan's last hesitation. Rage, pure and incandescent, erupted from him. With a roar that was part anguish, part fury, he shot into the sky, not at Cell, but directly at the smiling, floating figure of the man he had trusted. The man who had shown him his potential, who had trained him, who had then revealed himself to be a monster.
The battle for Earth's future had just become immeasurably more complicated.