The Cell Games is a tournament organized and hosted by Cell, in order to show his power to the world. One of Cell's other reasons for creating the Cell Games is so that he can recreate the World Martial Arts Tournament.
Biography
Background
Cell gives an international announcement for the games on May 17, Age 767 during a televised broadcast on WHN in ZTV Studios, and gives the fighters who want to participate 10 days to prepare. He also explains that new fighters can follow earlier participants. If the fighter were to give up or touch the outside the ring, it is a loss, and if the fighter is killed, they will be disqualified. In contrast with the World Martial Arts Tournament, killing was effectively permitted.
The Earth's Military had attempted to attack Cell prior to the start of the tournament, but the attack completely failed. That same day, Mr. Satan announces on television that he will defeat Cell at the Cell Games.
Tournament begins
Nine days later, on May 26, the Dragon Team have done as much training as they possibly could do, except Goku and Gohan, who are convinced they can beat Cell without the extra days of training. When the tournament commences, Goku decides he will be the first one to fight Cell.
However, the first challenger to arrive at the Cell Games is Mr. Satan (winner of the 24th World Martial Arts Tournament which the Z Fighters did not enter). He challenges the android himself along with his students, Pirozhki and Caroni. Cell proves to be far superior to them as expected, and they are quickly disposed of, with Mr. Satan claiming he slipped off the ring. Vegeta is the first of the Z Fighters to arrive, and is soon followed by the rest.
Goku is the first Z warrior to challenge Cell, and after a bit of sparring as a warm up, Goku increases his ki to maximum, which astounds the rest of the Z warriors. However, surprisingly, Goku's son Gohan expects more power from his father. After another bit of sparring, Cell forms a Kamehameha which threatens to destroy the Earth, until Goku diverts it away from the Earth, and then returns to the ring using his Instant Transmission, only to surprise Cell with an attack. Cell attacks with a flurry of Ki Blasts. After much fighting, Goku reaches his limit and nearly falls from the ring. Cell, tired of being confined to a small area, destroys the ring, and announces that the entire Earth is the ring now. Goku, desperate to end the conflict, forms a Super Kamehameha while in the sky, and makes Cell believe that Goku will fire the Super Kamehameha and risk the existence of the Earth in order to defeat him. Everyone is concerned that Goku will actually destroy the Earth, when Goku teleports at the last moment to a close proximity to Cell, and shoots the Kamehameha, blowing off Cell's head and upper body. Although Cell is able to regenerate from the attack due to having Piccolo's regenerative ability, it leaves both him and Goku significantly weakened. Goku, with his power dropping fast from the massive blast, announces that he is forfeiting the match, and then asks Gohan to take his place, because he knows that Gohan had no trouble following the fight between him and Cell. As the Z Fighters watch in awe, Goku reveals to everyone that Gohan is the only one able to beat Cell. Wanting the fight to be fair, he arrogantly gives Cell a Senzu Bean in order to recover from his energy loss, with everybody against the idea.
Gohan challenges Cell, increasing his ki to a point that rivals even Goku's. Cell quickly launches a series of attacks on the young Super Saiyan, but Gohan is surprisingly fast. Cell eventually launches him in a mountain. Believing that he has finished Gohan when he had launched him through that mountain; Cell calls on Goku to fight him once more. Goku points Gohan out to Cell, who emerges from the destroyed mountain practically unscathed. Gohan asks Cell to end the killing and tells him about his seemingly limitless dormant power that reveals itself whenever he goes berserk from rage. Cell is amused by this statement and decides to test it, attacking Gohan ruthlessly. When Cell fails to get Gohan angry, he then decides to provoke Gohan by attacking the Z warriors, and quickly swipes the Senzu Beans. Goku had not taken one before, leaving him weak and vulnerable to Cell. Android 16 launches a surprise attack on Cell, grabbing him and attempting self-destruction. Krillin informs Android 16 that his self-destruction device was removed by Bulma when she and her father repaired him. Cell escapes from 16's grasp and proceeds to obliterate him with a single blast.
Gohan's challenge
Cell then returns his attention to Gohan's friends and, instead of wasting energy and risking defeat by fighting them directly, he creates seven miniature versions of himself, which he calls the Cell Jr.'s. The Cell Jr.s, each nearly as strong as Cell himself, attack the Z Fighters, effortlessly beating all but Vegeta, Future Trunks and Piccolo. At this point, it is revealed that even though 16 was destroyed by Cell, his head was still operational and happened to land where Mr. Satan and his pupils were hiding. Satan surprisingly proves his worth by tossing 16's head over to Gohan. 16 reassures Gohan that sometimes words cannot reach people like Cell, and tells him to release his power to protect the Earth. Cell then crushes the head of Android 16. Finally pushed beyond his emotional limit, Gohan's inner power awakens, transforming him into a Super Saiyan 2.
Gohan snatches the stolen Senzu Beans from Cell, who could not see how Gohan had managed to do so. Gohan then effortlessly annihilates the seven Cell Jr's. It is then revealed that Goku was aware of Gohan's superior abilities all along, and Piccolo realizes that Goku used his own fight with Cell to give Gohan a preview of Cell's abilities; he never intended to beat Cell himself.
With the Z fighters out of harm's way, Gohan returns the Senzu Beans and then utterly dominates the evil android, severely injuring him with two simple hits, even after Cell increases his ki to maximum. All the Z Fighters (except Goku) are in awe of Gohan's awesome power, especially Vegeta, who has had his pride hurt even more (it took him his entire life to become that strong while it only took Gohan a couple of years). Attempting to make sense of this child's power that far exceeds his own, Cell fires a massive Kamehameha, knowing that if Gohan dodges it, it would destroy the Earth; to his surprise, Gohan easily counters it with a larger and stronger Kamehameha, pushing the blast back and destroying a significant portion of Cell's body. Goku tells Gohan to finish Cell, but Gohan, still in a rage from his awakened power leaves Cell to suffer. As Goku predicted, Cell regenerates, and out of frustration and rage, transforms into a state that maximizes power, just like the Super Saiyan Third Grade form. Future Trunks makes note that it was the same mistake that Cell mocked him for when he had fought him as a 3rd Grade Super Saiyan. Gohan beats Cell so hard that he is forced to regurgitate Android 18, which reverts him back to his Semi-Perfect form. Left with no other options, Cell initiates his self-destruction sequence, pumping his body up with enough ki to destroy the Earth. Gohan is unable to do anything, and Goku steps in as he chooses to sacrifice himself in order to save the Earth as he bids Gohan and the others farewell. He teleports Cell to King Kai's Planet where Cell explodes, killing all life on the planet, including Goku.
Downfall and aftermath
After regeneration, Super Perfect Cell uses Instant Transmission to return to Earth just moments after his seeming death, announcing his presence by killing Future Trunks with a single shot. Vegeta, shocked by the death of his son, launches a furious assault on Cell; it is in vain, though, as Cell is unaffected by the attack and quickly slams Vegeta aside. Cell then attempts to finish Vegeta off with a second ki blast, but Gohan intervenes and takes the full force of it himself, as a result, breaking his left arm. Cell wastes no time after this and fires a massive Kamehameha at Gohan, hoping to destroy Gohan along with the planet. Gohan, with spiritual assistance from Goku, launches a counter Kamehameha with his right arm. The two blasts meet in the middle, and a power struggle between Gohan and Cell ensues. Cell has the upper hand when the Z Fighters jump in. Their attacks do not affect Cell, though, and he maintains his blast. The only attack that affects Cell at all is a powerful blast from Vegeta which throws Cell off, and allows Gohan to destroy him once and for all, thus ending the Cell Games.
Though Gohan is effectively the winner of the tournament, the "official" winner is Mr. Satan, since Gohan and the Z Fighters fly off almost immediately after Cell's defeat and Mr. Satan claims that he defeated Cell single-handedly after Cell beat the other fighters. Despite the impossibility of this story's validity, Mr. Satan is easily believed by the populace and considered the true winner of the Cell Games (thus saving the Z Fighters from media pressure). Following the Cell Games, the Dragon Balls are used to revive Future Trunks, Android 17, and most of Cell's victims, save for Goku, King Kai, Bubbles, and Gregory who remain in Other World as Goku suggests that the Earth would be safer if he didn't come back this time.
Contestants
Champion
- Cell
- Cell Jrs.
Challengers
- Caroni
- Pirozhki
- Mr. Satan
- Goku
- Gohan
- Vegeta
- Future Trunks
- Piccolo
- Krillin
- Yamcha
- Tien Shinhan
- Android 16
Casualties
- Android 16 - Blown to pieces and head crushed by Cell.
- Cell Juniors - All killed by Super Saiyan 2 Gohan.
- Goku - Sacrificed himself to save the Earth from Cell's Unforgivable! self-destruction by teleporting him to King Kai's Planet. Later revived by Old Kai in Age 774.
- King Kai - Killed by Cell's self-destruction.
- Bubbles - Killed by Cell's self-destruction.
- Gregory - Killed by Cell's self-destruction.
- Android 17 - Killed during Cell's self-destruction. Later revived by Shenron along with Cell's other victims.
- Future Trunks - Killed by Super Perfect Cell's Full Power Death Beam. Later revived by Shenron along with Cell's other victims.
- Cell - Killed by Gohan's Father-Son Kamehameha.
Winner
Trivia
- In the Kanzenban version of chapter chapter 389, Cell's dialogue announcing the Cell Games has been altered so that the tournament will take place on May 26 like in Daizenshuu 7, rather than on May 17.
Gallery
See also
References
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