Dust choked the skies as the battlefield shuddered beneath every clash of energy. Flashes of golden light streaked against the emerald aura of Cell. The earth had cracked into craters. Smoke drifted from shattered boulders. Yet Cell stood firm—bruised, but still smiling.
Piccolo stepped forward, cloak fluttering, aura glowing with Kaioken x30 intensity. "Gohan. On me. We coordinate. Everyone else, stagger your attacks and cover each other. We're not amateurs anymore."
Gohan, eyes burning in Super Saiyan, nodded. "Got it, Piccolo"
Together, they launched themselves into the fray—Piccolo firing twin beam volleys to Cell's flanks, while Gohan zipped above to land a crashing axe-kick on Cell's shoulder. Cell staggered slightly, his grin stretching wider.
"You're learning teamwork. How quaint," Cell mused, voice like mockery wrapped in silk.
Just then, a beam pierced toward Yamcha, almost catching him mid-reposition.
Krillin shouted, "Too many close calls! We can't keep this up forever!"
Raditz wiped blood from his mouth. "Then we end this now! Everyone on him!"
But Cell raised his hand.
"Let me show you the difference between power... and strategy."
He flared his aura violently, and from the ground behind him, the very air twisted and ruptured.
"Come forth… my children."
A vortex of black and green energy burst open. From it, six creatures sprang forth from his tail, each short, blue-skinned, and smiling with malicious glee—identical in face to Cell.
"Wh-What are those things?!" Trunks demanded, recoiling as one of them zipped in front of him.
Cell laughed, arms wide. "Meet the Cell Juniors. Each one carries a fraction of my power... just enough to destroy each of you, one by one."
The Z Fighters immediately spread out. Each Junior darted toward a target.
Trunks swung first, blocking the Junior's strike, but was nearly blindsided by its unnatural speed.
"They're fast!" he growled, fending off a barrage of tail and fist attacks.
Krillin launched a Kaioken x30 Destructo Disk Barrage, but the Junior ducked and weaved with unnatural agility.
"These things are pure chaos!" Krillin shouted, narrowly avoiding a tail thrust that cracked a nearby boulder.
Piccolo fired a Makankosappo, but the Junior simply laughed, reflecting the beam back with its tail. Piccolo barely blinked it aside with his wrist.
"They can think. They're not just monsters—they're strategic."
Yamcha's wolf-fist strikes collided, but the Junior retaliated by catching his wrist and slamming him into the dirt with a backflip.
"I don't have time for your ugly face!" Yamcha snarled, rising again with a furious blast of Ki.
Tien unleashed a Rapid Dodon Barrage, but the Junior deflected it, taunting him with perfect flips.
"STOP MOVING!" Tien growled, charging into Kaioken x30 and finally landing a solid punch to the Junior's jaw.
The brothers in arms tag-teamed the last Junior, with Nappa bulldozing through its defense while Raditz blasted from above, but the creature kept reforming its stance and pushing back.
Piccolo, catching a glimpse of the exchange mid-battle, growled.
"We need a plan! Gohan, with me. We're going to rotate targets and confuse them!"
Gohan nodded. The two darted through the fray, switching opponents every few seconds. Cell Juniors screeched, disoriented by the sudden change in rhythm.
Krillin caught on quickly, pulling Trunks into the formation. Tien, Yamcha, Raditz, and Nappa followed suit.
The Z Fighters fought smarter—not harder.
Cell, observing from above, clapped slowly.
"Brilliant. Resourceful. Inspiring. But you're not ready. You never were."
He glanced to Goku. "And you… letting them suffer. Such a cold friend and father."
Goku smirked. "You don't know anything about me or my friends. And you certainly don't know Gohan"
The battlefield trembled.
A storm of ki erupted from the center of the crater-ridden arena as Gohan's aura surged, blinding golden with lightning crackling around his body like divine wrath. His eyes sharpened. His expression twisted into something that was not quite anger—but pure, righteous fury.
The Z Fighters, battered and scattered, could only watch in awe.
"He's done it..." whispered Piccolo, wincing from a fractured arm, "Super Saiyan 2!"
"This is… what he was hiding," murmured Goku, his arms crossed, eyes glinting with pride.
Cell smirked. "At last. The prodigy awakens."
But Gohan said nothing.
He vanished.
Cell Junior 1 blinked, only to be punched so hard it disintegrated, not even a scream escaping.
Cell Junior 2 tried to back away—too late. Gohan was behind it, crushing its skull between his hands like brittle stone.
Three… Four… Five… dead before they even reacted.
The sixth Junior turned to run— Gohan flared forward and launched a single beam through its back. It exploded, its remains vaporized by raw golden power.
In mere fifteen seconds, they were gone.
Nothing left but dust.
Cell's voice lost its amusement. "You killed my children."
Gohan hovered before him, unblinking. "You never loved them. You just made them to hurt us."
Cell gritted his teeth. "You're a threat to my perfection."
"Are you scared?"
With a roar, Cell lunged forward, trading blows with Gohan, who now fought on equal footing. His strikes were brutal, every punch breaking the sound barrier, every clash sending shockwaves across the battlefield.
But Gohan wasn't fighting alone.
Trunks stepped in, attacking from the left.
"I'm not going to let you take him alone!"
Gohan looked at him sharply. "Trunks, don't."
Too late. Cell kicked Trunks in the gut, launched a blast point-blank, and sent him crashing through a cliff, unconscious.
Raditz and Nappa rushed Cell next, a coordinated pincer attack.
"Double Crusher Cannon!" they shouted.
Cell caught both blasts with one hand and detonated them with a flick of his fingers.
He rocketed between them, spinning with a tail swipe that knocked Raditz out cold, and a precision gut punch that shattered Nappa's ribs.
Piccolo tried to intercept with a Kaioken x30-enhanced punch.
Cell caught his wrist and broke it with a flick. Then kneed him in the stomach and hurled him into a ravine.
Tien and Yamcha charged next.
Tien's Shin Kikoho cracked the skies, but Cell slipped behind him mid-firing and chopped the back of his neck, rendering him unconscious.
Yamcha shouted in rage, Kaioken flaring—
"Wolf Fang—"
—but Cell's open-palm strike caught him mid-charge, and Yamcha collapsed, twitching.
Krillin was the last.
He stepped between Cell and Gohan, teeth gritted, Kaioken x30 tearing his muscles.
"I'm not afraid of you—"
Cell drove a knee into his stomach and sent him flying into the distant woods.
Gohan watched, fists clenched.
All of them…
Down.
"Why did you do that!?" he shouted, fury bubbling again. "They weren't even a threat to you anymore!"
Cell wiped dust from his shoulder. "That's the point. You care. They were your leverage. And now they're nothing."
Retreat – The Support Team Escapes
From the edge of the battlefield, Chiaotzu and Master Roshi supported each other.
"We have to go. We're liabilities now," Roshi said grimly.
Chiaotzu nodded, clutching his bleeding arm caught off guard by a stray blast from a Cell Junior. "Let's get Mr. Satan and the others."
Nearby, Mr. Satan was giving an interview through a cracked camera lens.
"See, I—uh—told ya! That was my plan. All holograms. That boy? A delivery Boy. Proving once and for all that this is all Non sense. True Story.
Roshi grabbed his collar. "You're done with PR, Satan. Let's go."
The support group—the camera crew, and Mr. Satan's gang—all boarded the Capsule hovervan and began speeding away.
Face to Face – Cell vs. Gohan
Dust settled again. The wind stilled. Everyone else was down.
Only Gohan and Cell stood.
"So… it's just us now," Cell said.
Gohan's eyes burned with golden fury. "You'll pay for everything."
"Come then, boy." Cell's aura flared. "Let's see if your rage... is enough."