Finally. The hook was set.
Seeing Gohan's blind, furious charge, Rhode allowed himself a moment of internal relief. The charade was riddled with holes, but it had achieved its purpose: igniting Gohan's rage. Now, the question was whether that rage would forge a new level of power.
He floated serenely, a smile playing on his lips, watching the chaos unfold. Gohan's charge was halted before it even truly began. Cell, faster and more opportunistic, intercepted him mid-flight, a brutal kick sending the young Saiyan crashing back to earth.
"Get lost!" Gohan's roar was pure fury, his fist connecting with Cell's follow-up attack. But his eyes, even as he fought, kept darting past Cell, fixed on the smiling figure in the sky. The betrayal consumed him.
"Heh." Cell, with his back to Rhode, allowed a sly grin. He leaned in, his voice a conspiratorial whisper meant only for Gohan. "Gohan... how about we team up? Take him down together?"
The perfect being had no intention of being anyone's pawn. If an alliance with the brat could eliminate the real threat, he'd take it in a heartbeat.
"AHHH!"
Cell's scream was immediate and agonizing. Rhode had appeared behind him, a blade of pure ki manifesting in his hand. In one fluid motion, he carved away a significant portion of Cell's body.
Cell writhed, fear replacing cunning in an instant. But before he could even begin to regenerate, Rhode's other hand glowed with the familiar green-gold light of the Yardratian Recovery Technique. The severed mass reknit, and Cell was whole again, gasping, within a breath.
"Bad thoughts are fatal," Rhode's voice was ice. He looked from Cell to Gohan, his gaze encompassing them both. "Fight. To the death. If you don't, I'll erase you both and turn this planet to dust." He vanished, reappearing in his skybox seat.
Cell and Gohan exchanged a glance. No words were needed. They understood each other perfectly: they had to fight, and in fighting, they had to find a way to break their limits. It was their only hope.
Swish.
Rhode was back. He extended a hand to Cell. "The Time Machine."
Cell's jaw tightened, but he knew resistance was pointless. He produced a capsule and handed it over. Rhode pocketed it without a word, then vanished again.
**BOOM! **
The battle erupted in earnest. Cell and Gohan clashed, their power shaking the very atmosphere. Shockwaves rippled outward, flattening what little remained of the surrounding ruins.
From his vantage point, Rhode watched with a critical eye. His expression grew thoughtful, then darkened.
They're playing games. Cell's attacks, while fierce, lacked killing intent. He was feeding Gohan, treating the fight as a training session. Gohan, for his part, was going along with it, trying to use the battle to push his limits.
They thought they were being clever. They thought they could stall, grow stronger, and eventually turn the tables.
They were wrong.
Rhode understood Gohan's state perfectly. After a year in the Time Chamber, he had already achieved Full-Power Super Saiyan. His foundation was solid. But to break through to the next level—to Super Saiyan 2—required a catalyst. A crisis so absolute, so personal, that it would shatter his limits and unleash the torrent of power within.
This cooperative sparring session wasn't a crisis. It was a comfortable, controlled escalation. It would never produce the spark Gohan needed.
Time to stoke the fire.
A cold, determined look settled on Rhode's face. He ascended, higher and higher, until the atmosphere thinned and the blackness of space enveloped him. Below, the tiny figures of Gohan and Cell continued their dance.
If a gentle flame wouldn't forge the blade, he would have to use a much hotter fire. He began to gather energy, a massive, devastating attack forming in his palms. Not aimed at either fighter, but at the planet itself. A warning shot. A promise of the annihilation that awaited if Gohan failed to rise to the occasion.
**WHOOSH~ **
In the void of space, Rhode's transformation was instantaneous. His hair blazed gold, his aura erupted, and he raised his right hand. At his fingertip, energy began to coalesce—not a casual blast, but a deliberate, terrifying condensation of power. Over fifteen billion units of battle power, the full might of his Super Saiyan Full-Power state, channeled into a single point.
The energy sphere grew, its color shifting from brilliant white to a deep, ominous violet, the hue of compressed annihilation. When it was the size of a marble, Rhode flicked his wrist.
The marble fell.
As it plummeted toward the blue-green planet below, it grew. Atmosphere fed it, space itself seemed to compress around it, and within heartbeats, it had swelled into a sky-blotting mass of death, a second moon of pure destruction aimed at the heart of the world.
On Earth, the sensation was immediate and absolute. Every living thing felt the weight of approaching oblivion.
Cell's head snapped up, his 'training session' with Gohan forgotten. His artificial eyes widened, processing the impossibility above. "WHAT?!"
Gohan's gaze followed, and his blood ran cold. The ki blast descending was not an attack; it was an extinction event. And he knew, with sickening certainty, who had sent it.
"KAMEHAMEHA!" Gohan's reaction was pure instinct. He threw his hands forward, and a golden beam of desperate power lanced upward, meeting the descending apocalypse.
"Damn it!" Cell's own survival instinct overrode all cunning. He too thrust his hands forward, his own Kamehameha joining Gohan's, a brilliant azure spear thrusting at the violet doom.
For a moment, three forces met in the sky. The violet sphere paused its descent, a battle of cosmic scale playing out in the heavens.
But it was a losing battle. Gohan's power, even at Full-Power Super Saiyan, was around eight billion. Cell's was just under ten. Combined, they were still less than the fifteen-billion-plus behemoth Rhode had unleashed. Their beams strained, flickered, and began to slowly, inexorably, be pushed back. The violet sphere continued its silent, deadly fall.
"NO!!!"
Cell's scream was primal, ripped from a being facing final, absolute erasure. He had only just achieved perfection. He would not die like this! The rage, the desperation, the sheer unwillingness to cease existing—it ignited something. His Kamehameha surged, doubling, tripling in intensity as he tapped into reserves he didn't know he had.
Rhode, now back on Earth, felt the spike. Interesting. Crisis is pushing Cell, too. But his focus was on Gohan. The boy's power was rising, but it was a slow climb, not a breakthrough. He was still hitting a wall.
Time for the final key.
Rhode's form shrank to microscopic size. In an instant, he was on Gohan's head, a ghost in his perception. And into Gohan's mind, he began to push images. Vivid, brutal, real. Trunks, the young warrior of this ruined future, impaled and lifeless. Bulma, the genius, the mother figure, broken and still. He layered them with flashes—brief, potent glimpses of another Gohan, younger, fiercer, wreathed in lightning and power, his hair longer, his eyes blazing with the fire of Super Saiyan 2.
The images were relentless. The grief, the rage, the desperate need to save something, to be something more—it all converged.
"AHHHHHHHHH! "
The scream that tore from Gohan's throat was not one of pain, but of release. Of breaking through.
His aura did not just flare; it exploded. Golden light was consumed by a blinding, incandescent gold-white. Electrical arcs, wild and powerful, crackled around his entire form. His hair, already golden, lengthened and sharpened, defying gravity with a new, fierce pride. The pressure he emitted multiplied instantly, astronomically.
Super Saiyan 2.
Gohan had arrived.