The Gekiretsukodan That Split the Heavens!! Piccolo vs. Artificial Human 17

Piccolo and Number 17 stare each other down. Number 16 looks off somewhere else, uninterested in the upcoming battle. Number 17, "I can't understand why you want to fight even though you know you will lose. Are you trying to keep us here longer or are you just stupid?" Piccolo smiles and Number 17 laughs. Number 17, "Well, I'm ready for you anytime you're ready." Piccolo finally realizes that the other two Artificial Humans are off doing their own thing. "Are you the only one fighting me, Number 17?" Number 17, "Of course! I don't even really need to fight hard with you." Piccolo, "That's good. I might be able to handle this, then. If I kill either Number 17 or Number 18, Cell won't be able to become Perfect." Piccolo crouches down a bit, raises his fists, and begins screaming. His ki rises. Debris flies around and veins begin to pop out on Piccolo's forehead and arms. Number 17 is not impressed. An aura develops around the Super Namekseijin. Number 16 opens his hands, freeing two birds that he was shielding from the power up. A cup bounces around on a table at Kame House while Kamesennin and Chichi watch. The Z Senshi run out and look over at the island, and Piccolo's power up is visible even to them (especially once the shock wave travels across the sky).

Tenshinhan, "Even though we're far away, I can still feel his ki as if it were all happening right in front of me." Yamucha, "Unbelievable." Muten Roshi, "Beyond imagination." Kuririn, "Not yet. This is not all of his power yet..." They all gasp. "After fusing with Kamisama, Piccolo can raise his ki to even greater levels. This is just the beginning." Roshi, "No... no way..."

Popo, "Kamisama!" Son Goku, "The fight has begun." Gohan, "Is Piccolo fighting Cell?" Goku, "No, I can't sense their ki. It must be with an Artificial Human." Gohan, "Oh no! Piccolo-san will be killed!" He turns to run off and help out Piccolo, but Son Goku stops him. "There is nothing you can do now! You aren't strong enough. Or do you want to get in Piccolo's way?" Gohan suddenly stops. "Sooner or later, Vegeta and Trunks will come out with even more power. Wait until they come. Piccolo will be okay. He is not the same Piccolo as he was before." Popo smiles and nods. "That's right. The fusion of Kamisama and Piccolo should not be so easily beaten." Gohan turns around and nods. Goku, "What's going on, Vegeta? Is it impossible to become greater than Super Saiya-jin?"

Piccolo continues his little display of power. Number 16, "What? He's not Piccolo Daimaou!" Number 17 spins around. "What?!" Piccolo stops and suddenly appears behind Number 17. He gets a good hit in before Number 17 is even aware that they've started. The Artificial Human takes a few steps, but is able to keep his balance. As soon as he's stopped moving, Piccolo gets in another hit to the head. And so it goes into a frenzy with Number 17 on the defensive. Piccolo throws a final closing hit to his assault. Number 17 takes it in the face, and his feet are pushed back, sliding through the dirt. Number 17 grabs Piccolo's arm and kicks him in the stomach. Piccolo flies back. He lands on the face of a ledge and rockets himself forward off of that. They fly up into the air, Piccolo continuing a high-speed assault, but Number 17 getting through it with relative ease. Number 17 flies straight up with a strong hit, but Piccolo's not hurt. Piccolo springs forward with a counterattack, but Number 17 dodges it. They go into another frenzy of hits and kicks with Piccolo mostly on the offensive, but Number 17 scoring a few hits here and there. Number 17, "You are persistant!" He vanishes and Piccolo screams something. They start into a vanish, clash, vanish, reappear somewhere else, clash, vanish scene. Rocks are torn up. Number 18 sits around, uninterested in the fight. Number 16 follows the whole thing.

Number 17 appears somewhere. Piccolo appears beside him. Number 17 tries to elbow Piccolo in the back, but Piccolo disappears. Number 17, "What?" Piccolo flies in from above and gets Number 17 with a powerful hit in the back. Number 17 plummets, his eyes bulging, taken completely by surprise. Piccolo carries Number 17 almost all the way to the ground, but lets off a few feet up. Number 17 lands on his feet, but Piccolo swings around and kicks him in the side of the head. Number 17 is thrown to the ground. He bounces away from Piccolo before sliding to a stop. Piccolo stands a few feet away, engulfed in his aura. He turns to look over at Number 17 and his aura finally fades away. Number 18 utters something sounding like mild surprise. Number 16 watches, but remains silent. Piccolo stares down at his opponent. Number 17, "No way. My speed wasn't fast enough? No way!" He climbs to his feet. Piccolo stretches out his arm, palm facing Number 17. His aura flares up again. He powers up a monstrous ki blast and fires it at the helpless Artificial Human. Number 18 and Number 16 simply watch, making no move to interfere. The entire area turns colors of red, orange, yellow, and white. Rocks are lifted into the air. They begin to fall after several seconds and the sky returns to normal. Number 17 watches from the sky. The dust clears. A huge blemish on the Earth is left where all of the grass and plants were burned away in the attack. Number 17, "Damn, don't get so confident." Piccolo simply stares up at him.

Dr. Briefs rocks the cradle containing Chibi Trunks back and forth. "You are such a good boy. Go to sleep." Trunks remains motionless, eyes closed. Dr. Briefs stops. "Finally, he's fallen asleep." Bulma works at a nearby computer. "Oh, yeah. That's good." Dr. Briefs stands up. "How's your 'kill switch' project going?" Bulma, "It'll take more time. According to this blueprint, so many of these connections are crossed in a very complicated pattern... And I also have to shut down all these lines all at once or else it won't work. Even if I were to complete the kill switch, I still have to input all the cycles into this machine. It's going to take forever." She picks up a small device, looks at it, then back at her computer, then back at it, and then she goes back to work on her computer. The screen begins flashing red and the computer buzzes. "Oh, no. Dr. Gero made such a horrible thing." She slams her hands down on the keyboard. Chibi Trunks suddenly starts screaming. Dr. Briefs picks him up and starts rocking him in his arms, trying to calm the child. Bulma, "I want to cry, too..." A wire frame model of Number 17's body is displayed on her computer screen.

The wire frame fades into a picture of the real Number 17, staring down at Piccolo. "Get ready, knucklehead." Piccolo smiles up at him. Number 17 flicks his earring. He vanishes. Piccolo's aura flares up and he jumps into the sky. They meet midway and go into another fast-paced exchange of punches and kicks, blocks and dodges. They each get a few good hits in at the end, but neither "good hit" actually does much good. They're just slower and with a lot more power behind them. Number 17 throws one such punch and Piccolo vanishes. He comes in from overhead, attempting to kick Number 17 straight down, but the Artificial Human disappears. Piccolo looks over to see his enemy standing a few feet away...well, hovering anyway. Piccolo holds his hand out and gathers up a ki blast. He throws it at Number 17, but Number 17 just steps out of the way. Piccolo tries again, aiming for the smiling Artificial Human with not one, but many ki blasts thrown off in rapid succession. Number 17 easily dodges each one. To finish off the assault, Piccolo creates one huge ki blast to top it all off. "How about this!" Number 17 makes no move to dodge this one. Instead, he puts his arms out, crossed in front of his face. The ki blast hits. He struggles with it, losing maybe an inch to the attack. He finally throws the ki blast off. It explodes higher up in the atmosphere in a spectacular ball of light. Piccolo, "He threw it off!" Debris falls. Number 17, "I must admit that you're much stronger than before. Thank you for showing me such a pleasant time." Number 18, "He's playing around again. He never learns, don't you think so, Number 16?" Number 16 is silent.

Piccolo powers up and charges Number 17. Number 17 charges right back and they clash above the water, throwing up huge waves. The Z Senshi at Kame House watch the action from afar. Ten, "Who has the greater advantage? Piccolo or the Artificial Human?" Yamucha, "Of course, Piccolo does. No one can surpass this level of power." Roshi, "Since we can't sense their ki levels, don't be so sure of anything." Kuririn, "That's right. Artificial Humans don't have any ki at all."

Piccolo hovers several feet across from Number 17. The ocean rains down behind him after being thrown into the air during the last attack. A rainbow forms between them, but fades away as all of the water returns to its home on the surface of the Earth. Number 17, "What happened? Are you done already?" Piccolo laughs. Number 18 stands up. "Come on, finish this already. Or would you rather I come in and sub for you?" Number 17 turns around. "Don't be silly! How can I allow that? Now is the time when the fun is the greatest!" He turns back to Piccolo. "How about you? Aren't you having fun?" Piccolo, "That's right." Number 17, "This is nothing compared to me, the best and greatest power in the world." Piccolo, "Is that right? Well then, show me."

Piccolo vanishes and keeps reappearing/disappearing closer and closer to Number 17. He gets right up there and throws a ki blast, but Number 17 dodges. He throws another. Number 17 easily dodges each of them. Number 17, "Not again. It doesn't work on me." Piccolo continues his barrage anyway. Number 17, "I misjudged you. Do you really think that these stupid things would work on me?" Piccolo jumps back a few yards and begins again. Number 17 doesn't even have to move to dodge these. "Where are you hitting?!" He suddenly looks around and realizes he's surrounded by hundreds of balls of ki. He looks up, down, to each side. Piccolo laughs. "There is no way for you to escape. Is this the end of 'the best in the world'?" He grins. "You die!" He closes the circle around Number 17. Every ball converges on the single Artificial Human. The explosion begins, but as more and more of the ki balls fly in, it just feeds on the resulting explosions from those, and so it doesn't actually die down for quite a while. It grows larger and larger. The other two Artificial Humans watch silently. Piccolo laughs, admiring his handiwork. The huge explosion causes a great wind that blows as far away as Kame House, causing the rooster on Roshi's weathervane to spin around. Kuririn, "What...what's that?"

Piccolo finally runs out of blasts. A low roar comes from the smoking epicenter. The Artificial Humans and Piccolo watch the mass of dust and smoke that surrounds whatever is left of Number 17 in silence. Suddenly, Piccolo's eyes go wide and his mouth gapes open. A blue/green ball of light surrounds Number 17. "Ba...barrier?!" The barrier fades away. Number 17, "Too bad. That was very close, though." Piccolo, "Well, that was just the beginning." Number 17, "Let's change places. Somebody destroyed an island. Hmm. Same signature." He vanishes. Piccolo and the other two Artificial Humans quickly follow suit.

Cell holds a man by his leg. Another man cowers by a window. "This strong ki must be Piccolo fused with Kami. With whom could he be fighting?" He drops the leg in his hand. Its owner is apparently already dead. "Nobody but Number 17 and Number 18! I've found them! What great timing." He flies out the window, right past the cowering man. The man falls to the ground. "I'm saved..." Cell lands on top of a nearby building. "I'm coming. Wait for me. My powers are already greater than you guys!" He laughs and jumps off the building, flying toward the battle between Piccolo and Number 17.

The Artificial Humans and Piccolo land on a new island, ready to go at it again. Son Goku stares intently at a clock on the wall. Cell rushes to battle.