"...So, you're saying this world is populated by mythical creatures," Cell began, looking down at Trixie who was currently standing in front of him, glancing back with a confident gaze.
"Yes." Trixie confirmed. Cell rubbed his eyebrows – or where his eyebrows should be – then dropping his hand to Trixie.
"...And this land – Equestria – is specifically populated by horses who are ruled over by a diarchy... Who both can move celestial objects." When Cell finished, Trixie looked offended.
"Well, yes, but 'horses' is a bad word here, Mr. Perfect Cell." Trixie said, "The people of Equestria are ponies, not horses."
Cell turned away from Trixie and slapped his forehead, "Well, congratulations, Cell, you accidentally said a slur." He faced Trixie again, "Sorry, Trixie."
"Trixie accepts your apology." The blue unicorn gave him a nod, but as they were about to exchange words further, they were suddenly interrupted by a certain red dragon.
"I finally found you!" Garble exclaimed, pointing a claw at the perfect lifeform.
Cell raised a brow and turned to face the teenage drake. "I'm sorry, do I know you?" He inquired.
"You announced the 'Cell Games' to the world!" Garble looked annoyed and crossed his arms together. He tilted his head to the right, furrowing his brows. "Did ya forget, bug for brains?"
The perfect being raised his eyebrows, "Didn't I also announce that it would be in ten days?" As soon as the words came out of Cell's mouth, Garble stopped himself, a finger raised and his jaw slack. He rolled his eyes and turned to Trixie, "Teenagers, am I right?"
The blue unicorn merely shrugged her hooves in reply.
“Hm, I guess I can make an exception,” Cell closed his eyes and raised a hand to touch his neck, and twist his head left. Upon his head twisting he popped it and did the same when he tilted his head right. “Alright, Jake Long, let’s see what you can do.”
“My name isn’t Jake Long!” Garble hissed, flames oozing out of his maw, “It’s Garble!” He marched towards the steps and made his way onto the arena stage.
Cell raised a hand, revealing his palm, closing his palm into a fist and raising his index finger, he pointed at Trixie. “You, Tricky.”
“It’s Trixie!”
“Whatever,” Cell dismissed, “Step off the stage, I have to play with my pet lizard.” Feeling insulted, Garble growled, a vein popping out of his skull it was as if at any moment he could explode into a conniption fit.
Trixie rolled her eyes and trotted off stage, “Alright, Trixie will oblige, Trixie is rather interested to see what you can do.” She went over to her wagon and hopped inside to get a good spot to watch the fight.
Cell’s eyes were focused on Garble’s and analyzed his fighting stance that he had prepared. ‘Karate, hm, maybe this won’t be so bad after all…’ He noted mentally. “I assume you are aware of the rules, unless I’m mistaken.”
“Just beat each other up until the other is unconscious!” He raised a brow at Garble’s reply and shook his head with a chuckle.
“Oh, no, no, no, while that is correct, that is not the only rule. Rule number one,” He raised a finger, “There can only be two fighters in the ring at a time, which means no two on one, five on one, or a hundred on one combat, just mano-a-mano. Rule number two,” He raised a second finger, “You fight until you ring out the opponent by knocking them out of the ring, having them touch the floor, or otherwise. What you said was true, fight until they’re unable to fight. And yes, that includes killing your opponent.”
Upon hearing this, both Garble and Trixie made an audible gulp of fear.
“Since I am the creator of the Cell Games, I can change the rules however I want, whenever I want, and where I want. Do you understand, Garble?” Cell taunted a smirk having made way onto his lips after seeing the look of fear on Garble’s face.
“Y–yes!” Declared Garble as he held his stance.
A pregnant pause emerged from the two of them and not even Trixie dared to break the silence. Cell shifted his footing and took upon a stance and Garble shuffled his body to shake off the nerves. The wind was the only thing that could be heard as Cell and Garble locked eyes…
…And then it happened.
Garbe shot off right towards Cell with a fist cocked and ready to fire, the perfect being stood a solid stance and waited for him to come near. As the young drake unleashed his fist, Cell caught the punch and pulled him close to deliver a knee to his abdomen that knocked him to the sky high, but not enough to be considered airborne. Cell planted his foot outside of Garble as he descended and performed a hook kick to the young drake’s jaw that blasted him off the arena, however quickly catching himself, Garble flared his wings to prevent himself from ringing out.
Garble clenched his fists and wiped what he assumed to be saliva running down his chin, but when he looked down, he was surprised to see it was crimson blood. With wide eyes, he looked back up and expected Cell to still be at the arena, but was surprised to see the perfect being right in front of him. He yelped and flew higher into the air.
“How can you fly? You’re not using your wings!” Garble exclaimed, looking down at the perfect being below him.
“Please, as if those wings could hold a candle to what I can do without them. Like this,” He rocketed off towards Garble and the teenage dragon flinched, but what came never hit him, when he opened his eyes, he saw Cell’s face inches away from his own. With an exclamation he delivers a punch to his perfect jawline that snapped his head back. Garble followed the attack up by coming down with a punch that aimed him down to the earth. Cell was about to hit the ground until he, much like Garble, caught himself before he made contact.
Seeing Cell right beneath him, Garble inhaled as much air as he could and… “RAAAAAAHH!” Unleashed a massive spew of fire came from his mouth and shot down towards Cell.
“Well this stinks,” Cell muttered a millisecond prior to the fire crashing into him and scorching him and the plains around him with blazing hot heat. A massive cloud of smoke filled the area Cell was hit, and the black smoke slowly climbed up to Garble’s nose where he inhaled the gas like he was getting high off of it.
“Do you smell that? Smells like roasted bug! I did it, I won!”
Trixie watched from afar with a hung jaw, the pony(?) that could have brought her revenge on Twilight Sparkle, just died. “Well… Trixie guesses that he wasn’t as strong as Trixie thought…” Right as she went to hop out of her wagon and hit the old dusty trail, she saw a figure in the smoke. “What the hay?”
Garble up above was laughing and dancing, “Garble, Garble, woop, woop! Garble, Garble, woop, woop!” He celebrated with a laugh, but then the laugh turned into a pain filled wheeze as Cell buried his fist right into the gut of the teenage drake. Not finished, he raised his fists above the noggin of the lizard with wings and brought them down like a sledgehammer that forced Garble to crash like a meteorite into the soil below. Garble gagged and coughed inside the smoke filled crater, all the while Perfect Cell watched him with crossed arms.
“You lost, ring out.” Cell noted as he descended to look at Garble in his eyes. Trixie watched as Cell descended and booked it as fast as she could to try and stop what she believed to be Garble’s demise.
“How…?” Wheezed the drake, “How did you…?”
Cell scoffed, “Please, I’m the perfect being, if I couldn’t handle the heat, then I would take off my crown.” He pointed to his head with a finger, before using the same finger to clear the smoke around them. “Get yourself cleaned up and leave, hopefully you learn something valuable in this lesson about fighting people stronger than you. Unless you don’t and come back on the day of the tournament, to which I welcome you with open arms to try again.” He turned away from Garble. “Goodbye, Garble the Dragon.” And like that he rocketed off towards the arena and got back in his position, blowing right past Trixie.
Trixie’s eyes widened and she spun to look at Cell who raised an eyebrow at her, “What are you doing all the way over there.”
She looked at him, then at Garble who was beginning to crawl out of the crater, and then back at Cell. “Uh… Trixie thought…” He raised another eyebrow. She eventually sighed and shook her head, “Nevermind.” She started to make her way over to Cell with an intrigued expression on her face.
Maybe this weird bug man wasn’t so bad at all.