(Rina Antiqua)

(Blue Igneous)

(Strunton)

(Brobuscus)

(ishi_yuki)

(The Cardinal King)

(Riley)

(WWAL)

(Andrex)

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” -Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

(Edit by Yuix)

Cell, the artificial amalgamation of Dragon Ball’s Z-Fighters.

Metal Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog’s perfect copy.

Perfection is something we struggle to achieve. For these two creations of mad scientists, it’s the ultimate goal they strive for, even if it means claiming other’s powers as their own. But when Android meets Replica, who will truly achieve perfection? Will Cell send this robotic doppelgänger to the junkyard? Or will Metal Sonic prove that being metallic is superior to being organic? Let’s find out in a Death Battle!

Before We Start…

For Cell, the primary focus will be the original Dragon Ball manga pretty obviously. The actual part that needs discussion due to a lot of controversy is the usage of the Dragon Ball anime adaptation created by Toei Animation. The adaptation follows the same primary story beats as the manga, but features new statements and scenes that do not appear in the original manga. Because of this, the anime adaptation’s additions have been argued as non-canon and unusable for characters such as Cell. However, for this blog, we will be using additions from Toei’s adaptation.

Despite the additions, it is important to readdress that the anime does still follow the primary story beats, and thus importantly, does not change any actual big details of the overall story. Notably, series author Akira Toriyama admires some of the changes and acknowledges that Dragon Ball is both the anime and the manga. Some additions have gone so far as to become canon to the manga as well, including characters like Gregory and Olibu appearing in modern stories. All this being said, we will not be using the Dragon Ball movies, as they do all nearly contradict the original story unlike the anime adaptation. The exception for usage is Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone due to it being referenced in the anime’s original Garlic Junior saga. Additionally Dragon Ball GT will not be utilized as it takes deviations even further from the original timeline than the movies does, and is officially regarded nowadays as non-canon to the official timeline. Apart from the original anime, we will also be using the condensed version of the anime in the form of Dragon Ball Z Kai, the game Dragon Ball Z Kakarot (which similarly is stated by Toriyama to expand on the original manga’s lore like the anime did), and any notable Dragon Ball guidebooks such as the Daizenshuu.

Metal Sonic will be analyzed with all canon sources in mind. Games, IDW, the Sonic Prime cartoon series, the official YouTube channel series TailsTube, official guidebooks and magazines, et cetera. The stuff you’re used to for Sonic. Metal is not in Sonic Chronicles and neither on Sonic X, so we don’t have to cover those, even if most use them as secondary material for Sonic characters. Other blatant non-canon Sonic media will be excluded. Additionally, Sonic Speed Simulator will be considered as secondary canon, given its status of impossible to contradict canon, and the Sonic OVA film will be included due to how iconic it is to Metal’s character—as it doesn’t impact the debate majorly.

As an additional note, some members involved with this blog have previously done a blog on Metal Sonic, as well as Sonic and Shadow before. While this G1 prediction won’t be a carbon copy of them for obvious reasons, you should expect part of the research being shared between them. Same goes for our Bowser VS Eggman blog from 2024.

Background

Cell image by WWAL, Metal Sonic image by Riley

Cell

“Victims? They should consider it an honor to become part of me!”

The situation was incredibly dire. Even with two Super Saiyans and some of Earth’s top fighters, the Androids 17 and 18 were unbeatable by any of Earth’s heroes. It was believed that even if the recently sick Goku was healthy, the cyborg menace would bring doom to the world just like they had the timeline belonging to Trunks. So, as a last resort, Piccolo flew up to Kami’s Lookout, seeking to merge with his counterpart in order to defeat the current threat. The counterpart in question, Kami, had overseen terrors across the Earth for years, and was aware of the horror that our heroes now faced. Except the thing… it could only be called a thing, that was on his mind… wasn’t the Androids? But if not them, what could it be? What could be worse than these absurdly powerful cyborgs? Simply put, a monster. Cell.

A project forgotten by Dr. Gero, Cell was an artificial lifeform that had been abandoned within his lab for years. However, Gero’s computer acted on its own, picking up data from powerful warriors. Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, Freeza, and King Cold. But without Gero’s involvement, Cell didn’t have a clear purpose like his Android brethren. They were given the focus to kill Goku, but Cell didn’t have some similar objective. Thus, the computer gave him his purpose: to reach perfection by absorbing Android 17 and 18. But by the time Cell reached maturity, the Androids had been defeated by Trunks. Thus, to continue pursuing his goal, Cell killed his timeline’s Trunks and used his time machine to reach the primary timeline belonging to our heroes. Hiding in his larva state until he emerged, ready to hunt in a timeline where 17 and 18 were alive and well.

That brings us back to Kami’s sighting of the monster, leading to Piccolo and friends having to deal with both the threat of the Androids AND Cell. Things especially weren’t helped by Cell hopping from city to city to absorb innocents to gain power, leading to a version of himself too strong for even an amplified Piccolo to defeat. This led to the absorption of Android 17, and Cell reaching his next form. Another step towards perfection. Add in playing Vegeta, and Cell was right there to reach his goal. One absorption of Android 18 later, and he had done it, he reached the end goal of strength: his perfect form!

…now what? Before, Cell had claimed he didn’t have a plan apart from his perfection being reached. Claim the strongest in the universe title, maybe get some extra joy out of it thanks to his Saiyan cells, but now what? That’s where those Saiyan cells come back, along with maybe his cells from Piccolo and Frieza driving his lust for battle. After slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people, fighting and embarrassing Vegeta and Trunks, and receiving a promise that Goku would soon be able to defeat him, Cell had two new things he wanted to see: victory in high-speed combat, and terror on the face of the pathetic. That’s what he had grown to like, coming from his cells influencing his behavior alongside his personal experiences.

Thus he announced the Cell Games to the world! A one vs everyone for the sake of the planet, where Cell would battle the planet’s greatest champions. The perfect place for him to embarrass heroes, seeing the terror on their face. It’s interesting, Cell was similar to the people who built up his creation. Frieza’s cruelty, Goku’s eagerness for battle, Vegeta’s arrogance, but the blend of these traits had made a unique fighter unlike any before. Unfortunately for this monster, his ambitions paved the perfect road to his demise. His eagerness for a challenge combined with his desire for terror was the perfect mix to awaken Gohan’s rage. With Super Saiyan 2 unlocked, he was far too much for Cell, leading to a destructive crash out. Even when Cell got perfect luck, reawakening with a Zenkai Boost to reach new heights, this fighter of the new generation was still too much for him. Ironic that Cell sought to inspire fear through devastating power, but no one looked more terrified in the face of unstoppable power as the bio-android.

Metal Sonic

“I am Neo Metal Sonic. I am Dr. Eggman’s greatest creation. I am Sonic the Hedgehog – perfected.”

The world had been saved. While the vile Doctor Eggman had attempted to roboticize South Island, one certain blue blur – Sonic the Hedgehog – had defeated his mechs, collected the Chaos Emeralds, and saved the world from the Doctor’s machinations. Still, however, the Doctor was not so easily foiled – he had plans to take over the fabled legendary Little Planet, a world that contains the fabled Time Stones, allowing him to take control of the fabric of time itself to stop the Blue Blur in his tracks. However, he knew that he couldn’t stop him with simply the technology he had before – and what better to beat Sonic than a replica? Thus, he built the one and only Metal Sonic off of the Blue Blur’s data.

Even despite Metal’s power, he ultimately failed in a race against his copy, and got wrecked by his own creator, and abandoned on Little Planet. There he sat, for over a year – his anger and rage stewing. And he finally was able to come back from Little Planet, ready to prove himself as the true Sonic the Hedgehog. He even found a mysterious new power, and yet despite trying repeatedly, he was foiled by Sonic and Tails, and even lost the race again. And so, the cycle for Metal repeated. Time and time again he would fight Sonic, or someone else, and time and time again he would lose, over and over again.

…And at one point, he had enough. He finally became aware, and decided enough was enough. Even beyond his own creator, he was the true ultimate lifeform. He evolved into a new, more perfect form – Neo Metal Sonic. He locked away Doctor Eggman, and assumed control of the Eggman Empire, shapeshifting into the good Doctor, and copying the biodata of Sonic and his friends, as well as Chaos, to evolve into a truly perfect life form. He became the true overlord of the world, more powerful than seemingly anything else – and yet, it still was not enough. He was trounced once again by his loathsome copy, despite having seemingly evolved beyond anything in the world. He could never match the original Sonic. And even his own creator thought that Metal had gone too far, resetting his code and making him more subservient, unable to rebel again.

…Or so he thought, at least. While Metal Sonic may not have properly rebelled again, he still defied Eggman’s will to fight the Blue Blur again during the racing tournament the Doctor set up, always seeking to aim higher. And then, Eggman decided to perfect Metal once again – to bring him back to the height of his power as Neo Metal Sonic, but this time subservient, as his ultimate backup plan should he fail in his conquest of the world. And so, he returned again, the new leader of the Eggman Empire, and nearly won it all, evolving to a true Master Overlord – and yet, once again, he was trounced by the one he could never seek to overcome, because he could never quite match the original Sonic. And yet, despite his inability to ever be enough, Metal Sonic will still fight again and again and do whatever it takes to prove he is the true, perfect version of Sonic the Hedgehog. No matter what.

Experience & Skill

Cell

While Cell doesn’t have extensive direct martial arts training, you wouldn’t think that if you saw how he actually performs in battle. Even before achieving his perfect form, he was especially crafty. Keeping his power low to stay hidden from the Z-Fighters, always raising it when doing absorptions only to hide it whenever the Z-Fighters got close. This let him easily evade perceptive people like Piccolo for days, letting him rack up over a hundred thousand absorption kills to raise his power. He also knew good times to use disruption techniques such as the Solar Flare to avoid disadvantageous horde fights, and was clever enough to “trick” Vegeta into helping him reach his perfect form (take this as either a good Cell intelligence feat or a Vegeta fumble as you will, or both).

But time for the actual meat and potatoes, how good is Cell at throwing hands? He can fight evenly with excellent fighters like Goku, but is he really as skilled as him? Actually, yes. It’s notably stated that as Cell develops in forms, he doesn’t just increase in stats, but also skill and intellect. His perfect state is referred to as the perfect fighter by Goku of all people, and Goku couldn’t figure out a single weakness of Cell after examining him. To emphasize, Goku didn’t even consider an idea like Cell having a flaw like worse skill, which lines up with Cell’s point about him becoming the perfect fighter. This lines up with his actual battle performance, with him going even with Goku in hand to hand. This is the same Goku who’s trained with masters like Roshi, Korrin, Kami, and King Kai, and matched the unrivaled master of a host of martial arts, Gohan (not to be confused with the one who killed Cell).

Additionally, Cell has an interesting perk in that he’s rather good at copying moves. There’s the variety of ones he knows from the people who his DNA mix is drawn from, but he weirdly learned Instant Transmission by simply watching Goku use the move enough times. Seriously, it was just from watching him, which is pretty dumb, but good for him I guess!

Along with his direct showings of skill, Cell also has plenty of martial arts techniques to showcase in battle, both unique and copied from other fighters.

• Afterimage Strike: A technique where the user moves at high speed to conjure an afterimage of themselves, baiting out attacks to distract foes and leave them vulnerable. Despite the requirement for activation, the technique weirdly still works on people of relative or better speed, with Cell himself using it in cases that frankly make the afterimages seem more like tree log Naruto clones than an image left behind by speed.
• Low Kick: A close range short stomp to bonk short kings.
• Perfect Attack: Cell hits his opponent upward with a 180 degree kick, before knocking them right back to the ground with a Vegeta PTSD inducing elbow.
• Rolling Strike: Cell flies forward with a rolling charge, amping up in a devastating elbow to knock them to the ground.
• Hell Strike: Cell will quickly teleport to his opponent, before doing a strong backhand that makes them eat dirt. He’s quite confident in his speed you know!
• Bear Hug: When Cell wants to show tough love, he wraps his arms around the opponent and goes to squeeze them to death.
• Bio Impact: Cell crouches down and charges in a yellow aura around him to hit his opponent as he launches towards them.
• Solid Hammer: Cell double axe-handles punches the opponent and goes to sidekick them away. He flies to punch them against their stomach, then finally leaves his hand open, using his Kiai to send the opponent away.
• Perfect Combination: Cell flies up to his opponent as he kicks them up into the air. He flies after the opponent as he proceeds to do an onslaught of punches and kicks before slapping them away. He finally teleports above them and elbows them on the back.

Metal Sonic

Contrary to popular belief, Metal Sonic is far from just a jobber, and has shown to take many Sonic characters in battle – both individually and in attempts of them jumping him. While Metal himself isn’t throwing hands like a martial artist, preferring to attack straightforwardly or with his powers, he has shown to actually fight in hand-to-hand in Neo Metal Sonic in the IDW Comics. There’s – of course – the fact he consistently keeps up in battle with his organic counterparts, who’s not only skilled in a few martial arts (as well as having his skill complimented by masters that have a millennia of age) but also beat down Eggman alone in more than two hundred thousand fights, including machines like the Egg Dragoon that was specifically designed with years of studying Sonic’s movements and skill. Knuckles the Echidna and Shadow the Hedgehog – characters that Metal also has shown to battle in equal footing, or should at least be comparable to given how greatly he can match Sonic – have also notable skill. Thanks to possessing the bio-data of his creator, Dr. Eggman, he has an IQ of at least 300 — giving him the smarts of a genius to strategize and command the Eggman Empire when Eggman was out.

Metal Sonic himself possesses a lot of hand-to-hand techniques he likes to utilize in combat, seen in Sonic the Fighters, such as:

• Claw Attacks: Metal Sonic really likes to use his claws as a way to attack. He possesses scratch attacks in multiple forms, like Scratch Claw, Double Scratch, One-Two Scratch, and Slash Claw.
• Kick Attacks: Similarly, many of Metal’s kick moves are pretty handy. He can do a Horse Kick for sheer force, Hop Kicks both on ground and in mid-air, Back High Kicks to catch opponents off guard, a Drop Kick to launch himself towards his opponent, and a Smackback Kick like a Ganondorf F-Tilt.
• Punch Attacks: Indeed, Metal knows how to throw punches. He can quickly move to an opponents’ back for a Back Punch, and also a Wimpy Punch… which name is, self explanatory. Surprisingly good move, though.
• Airplane Drop: Metal Sonic grabs his opponent, flies up in the air, and drops on the ground again at high speed.
• Stomp: STOMP.
• Emerald Dive: I’M NOT GONNA SUGARCOAT IT Metal Sonic dashes in the air towards his opponent like a torpedo, dealing two hits to them and knocking them down.

The fact that Metal Sonic’s bio-data also lets him copy an individual’s intellect proves that he could be skilled as many other characters such as Espio, Rouge or Silver; he can master any technique his copying ability takes almost instantly. Metal Sonic managed to sneak attack Gemerl, an upgraded version of the robot Emerl (who Sonic also held his own with in combat), and Emerl crashed Dr. Gerald’s supercomputer just from its sheer data in martial art and weapon mastery. Other than his base forms, Metal also performs well in his powered states and forms. When Metal Sonic used all of the Chaos Emeralds to power-up (note: not a Super form), he bodied Sonic, Tails, Mighty and Ray all at once. Master Overlord in order to be defeated took more than 10 people fighting him all at once while Knuckles had to specifically target his weak spot. Additionally, Metal Overlord took three Super forms at once.

Equipment

Cell

Nintendo DS

FORGET THE CELL GAMES YOU WANNA PLAY DS?

I THOUGHT YOU’D NEVER ASK!

Metal Sonic

Rings

A staple of the Sonic series. These are very useful in battle, serving as an extra layer of protection should the user get hit, pretty handy against what could be a fatal blow. As long as there’s at least one ring in hand, it will prevent the user from dying. A user’s durability is also important on how many rings they’ll lose, the higher the durability, the less rings they’ll lose. In addition, the rings are also good for stat increases, giving ring energy, and recovering the user’s powers. Metal Sonic can have at best 999 rings, possibly more given other games such as Sonic 06 and Sonic Speed Simulator.

Dark Rings

Particularly different Rings found by Dr. Eggman during the events of Knuckles Chaotix. These Rings amplify the powers of Badniks, and in Metal Sonic’s case, allows him to access his Metal Sonic Kai form, which will be covered later.

Item Boxes

Because Metal Sonic was a playable character in a few games [such as Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Riders, and a few other racing games], he should have access to some item boxes, with many utilities during a fight. These include:

Picture	Name	Function
	Extra Life	Grants an extra life to Metal.
	Power Sneakers	The user’s speed and jump height are both increased, allowing for greater leaps and easier acceleration to a speed beyond the user’s normal capabilities. (Lasts 15-20 seconds)
	Invincibility	For a brief period of time, the user will gain a sparkling aura and be rendered impervious to hazards that would normally cause them potentially lethal harm. (Lasts 15-20 seconds)
	Shield	A single-use barrier that is used once the user takes an instance of damage, allowing for an instance of free damage.
	Super Ring	Can grant from 5 to 100 Rings.
	Dash	When opened, the user receives a burst of speed from a forward dash that lasts for a few moments.
	Invincible	White and sparkling stars will envelop the user, making the user immune to obstacles and enemy special abilities.
	Jump	The user is bounced into the air in a similar fashion to a Spring.
	Mine	When acquired, the wielder is able to drop the obtained mine to leave a hazard for opponents.
	Random Rings	Grants a random amount of Rings.
	Smart Bomb	Upon use, all enemies on the screen are destroyed.
	Magnetic Shield	A barrier which tanks one instance of damage without the user being harmed, also granting the additional benefit of pulling nearby Rings to them.
	Health	Restores a decent amount of health.
	Bowling Strike	A bowling ball is thrown ahead of the user, colliding into and stunning those it hits.
	Free Throw	The user throws basketballs at an opponent, stunning them.
	Octo-Boost	The Octo-Boost creates an exhaust from its mouth, giving the user a burst of speed.
	Octo-Ink	The Octo-Ink will release a cloud of ink behind the user which forms a dome, said dome causing an obscured field of vision should somebody make contact with it.
	Soda Rocket	A soda can with an image of Dr. Eggman on it. Shaking it will enlarge the soda can, with the user jumping on the giant can to gain a few moments of being shot forward at extreme velocities.
	Target Torpedo	The user will gain a torpedo, which will lock onto whatever target the user is aiming at before homing in and hitting them directly to inflict damage.
	Tee Shot	The user will gain a golf club, allowing them to strike a golf ball at an opponent and stunning them momentarily.
	Warp Ring	Teleports Metal through a Warp Ring to above the opponents’ position, crushing them from above.
	Omochao	Gives Rings to the user.
	Homing Punch	A homing boxing glove missile that hits the nearest opponent. Hey it’s Mario Kart Red Shell
	Triple Homing Punch	Now imagine Homing Punch… but more.
	Rocket Punch	A boxing glove missile that bounces on walls. Hey it’s Mario Kart Green Shell   This one can also home if targeting tho
	Triple Rocket Punch	MORE!!!
	Slime	Summons a Warp Ring to throw slime at an opponent, messing with their view for a moment.
	Weight	Cartoon anvil.
	Dark Chao	Let’s Metal steal items from his opponents.
	Shield	Turns Metal’s body into… metal? To protect from any attack in a single use.
	Tornado	Summons a tornado around Metal to protect him from incoming projectiles.
	Spiked Iron Ball	A spiked ball that can be thrown to deal damage to opponents.
	Slicer	Used to slice machines in half in the game it comes from. Outside of a race, it do be an awesome weapon, I suppose.
	King Boom Boo	Summons King Boom Boo to deal damage to opponents.

Sonic Rivals’ Power-Ups

Metal Sonic is a playable character in the Sonic Rivals games, and thus gets access to some of the power-ups. Each different power-up has an offensive and a defensive effect, serving to either protect users or attack their enemies to win. Those power-ups consist of:

• Fire
  • Offensive Effect: Shoots a fireball that speeds through the track to hit the opponent.
  • Defensive Effect: Creates a fire shield that protects the user from one hit.

• Ice
  • Offensive Effect: Shoots a blast of ice through the track that freezes the opponent.
  • Defensive Effect: Drops an ice cube that freezes the opponent if they run into it.

• Lightning
  • Offensive Effect: Zaps the opponent, paralyzing them for a short while.
  • Defensive Effect: Drops several lightning decoy rings that paralyze the opponent if they touch one.

• Illusion
  • Offensive Effect: Distorts the opponent’s vision.
  • Defensive Effect: Drops a small orb of Illusion that distorts the opponent’s vision.

• Ring Magnet
  • Attract nearby Rings.

• Wind
  • Offensive Effect: Shoots a tornado that trails through the track and scoops the opponent up into the air.
  • Defensive Effect: Drops a tornado that scoops the opponent into the air.

• Oil Slick
  • Offensive Effect: Shoots a blob of oil that will cause the opponent to slip if they are within range.
  • Defensive Effect: Drops a puddle of oil that will cause the opponent to slip if they run into it.

• Glue Trap
  • Offensive Effect: Shoots a blob of glue that homes in on the opponent and sticks them to the ground, rendering them temporarily immobile.
  • Defensive Effect: Drops a puddle of glue that sticks the opponent to the ground if they run into it, rendering them temporarily immobile.

• Mine
  • Offensive Effect: Shoots a mine that homes in on the opponent and explodes on contact.
  • Defensive Effect: Drops a stationary mine that explodes if the opponent runs into it.

Speed Battle Power-Ups

In Sonic Forces: Speed Battle, there are unique power-ups that each playable character can access, granting them an advantage in the race. There arethree types of power-ups to each character:

• A Projectile, used to attack enemies at long or short distances, with the purpose of making you surpass them in the race;
• A Boost, used to gain a very notable speed boost to get your chance to reach first place;
• And a Trap, used to fool opponents and slow them down with surprise hazards around the race.

Metal Sonic is no exception, and has his own set of abilities granted by the item boxes of the game. We’ll be covering Metal Sonic, Reaper Metal Sonic, and Neo Metal Sonic – the three variants of Metal Sonic in this game.

Looks	Name	Type	Description
	Steal	Projectile	A devious power-up that pickpockets an opponent’s item.
	Electro Boost	Boost	Puts a little zip in your running, attracts Rings, and zaps opponents so they drop items.
	Explosive Mine	Trap	Explodes on impact causing considerable delays to opponent journey times.
	Harvest Time	Projectile	A short-ranged slash which crosses three lanes and deals devastating damage. There’s nothing corny about this scythe!
	Ice Boost	Boost	Glide forward at speed and put the freeze on any opponents you hit.
	Dead End	Trap	Chill your rivals to the bone as spooky tombstones appear before them!
	Voltaic Discharge	Projectile	Devastate your rivals with this powerful sweeping energy beam while changing lanes.
	Thunder Drive	Boost	Become invincible, boost through obstacles and rivals alike sending out a damaging electric pulse.
	Tri Bolt	Trap	Gather energy and project powerful electric orbs to strike down rivals.

Wisps

Wisp are a small alien species found from many planets throughout the universe, but mostly reside on their place of origin, Planet Wisp. They are a diminutive, yet powerful alien species that are able to enter a user to perform special abilities based on which color the wisp is. Metal is capable of using several of these colorful buddies in either a battle or a race.

Wisp Ability	Powers
White Wisp’s Boost	They give Metal Sonic additional boost energy to propel themselves forward at great speed.
Black Bomb	Transforms Metal Sonic into a bomb that rolls over enemies and detonates. The bomb progressively gets larger as Metal takes out more enemies, and the explosion gets bigger too. In Team Sonic Racing, they are a knock-off from Mario Kart’s Bob-omb.
Gray Quake	Metal Sonic’s increased body density causes destructive shockwaves when jumping or landing, and allows for wall-crawling. In Team Sonic Racing, it flies forward, creating stone pillars that emerge from the ground.
Blue Cube	Transforms Metal Sonic into a blue cube. Said cube can emit a large shockwave by slamming into  the ground that can stomp enemies or turn blue rings into blue cubes. In Team Sonic Racing, they’re shown to be capable of creating large blue cubes to throw at other racers. Additionally, the Blue Cube can transmute enemies into cubes with its power.
Indigo Asteroid	Metal Sonic turns into a small planet-like entity with a strong gravitational field, pulling nearby objects and foes toward itself. This captured matter is transmuted into lifeless material for its ring system, enhancing the gravitational force. Additionally, the Indigo Asteroid enables Metal to levitate.
Violet Void	Metal Sonic becomes a massive and ghostly black hole orb with violet edges. It can pull in nearby objects, making them disappear, though it cannot attract very large or heavy items. The Violet Void’s smoke-like form allows it some intangibility, letting it pass through certain barriers unharmed. This form also enables flight. As the Violet Void absorbs objects, it integrates their mass into its structure, growing larger and enhancing its suction strength. This increased power allows it to draw in bigger and heavier objects from further away. At its maximum size, the Violet Void can even engulf massive objects like the Frigate Skullian, a large aircraft. In Team Sonic Racing, the Violet Void’s suction feature lets users pull items to them.
Magenta Rhythm	The transformation turns Metal Sonic into a music note, enabling them to bounce on air and glide through it. In Team Sonic Racing, this ability allows Metal to disorient other racers and obscure their view.
Pink Spikes	This transformation turns Metal Sonic into a large spiky ball resembling a sea urchin (which is a bit ironic given sea urchins have archaically been called sea hedgehogs). Power wise, the now-even-pointier fella is now capable of performing a Spin-Dash on any surface, including floors and ceilings. In Team Sonic Racing, Metal creates 3 spiky balls that orbit around him.
Crimson Eagle	Transforms Metal Sonic into an eagle shaped projectile that flies at a faster pace. In Team Sonic Racing, it homes into other racers and explodes on contact.
Red Burst	Metal Sonic transforms into a sizable fiery sphere that bounces around. It has multiple fire-based powers, including a flaming barrier that burns anything upon contact, and can self-ignite to produce blasts of fire. These blasts boost Metal higher or can be intensified to set off massive, destructive explosions that obliterate almost everything nearby.
Orange Rocket	Metal Sonic transforms into… a rocket. As expected, it can be used to generate strong jet propulsion from their back to propel themselves forward through the air at impressive speeds. In Team Sonic Racing, they are used as rocket shaped projectiles to launch at other racers.
Yellow Drill	Metal Sonic becomes a yellow drill that will pierce the heavens, that can also be used to row row fight the power into his enemies.
Ivory Lightning	It grants Metal Sonic a lightning physique and speed, imbued with electric powers, along with the ability to form electrical threads. These can be used to electrocute enemies or tether the user to targets. In Team Sonic Racing, this power is utilized to strike the other drivers just like the one from Mario Kart (SEGA needs to be more original ffs).
Jade Ghost	Turns Metal Sonic invisible and intangible, making him unhittable and letting him phase through anything.
Cyan Laser	Transforms Metal Sonic into a laser that bounces off walls and opponents at the speed of light. In Team Sonic Racing, this ability allows him to fire a powerful beam at other racers.

Lost Labyrinth Treasure

An orb from Sonic 4’s Lost Labyrinth Zone, this is said to be a very powerful energy source. When Metal Sonic absorbed this mysterious artifact, it amplified his power to the point where Metal Sonic destroyed three tracklines with a single spindash. Once Metal Sonic successfully charges himself with this orb, he gains a magenta looking aura that also has a purple energy shockwave which surrounds him and delivers harm to anyone who he comes into contact with. This orb also gives Metal Sonic the ability to generate pillars of electricity and create a massive sphere of energy. (Hm…looks familiar…we just don’t have the right amount of spirit in our heads to figure out what that reminds us of…)

Chaos Emeralds

The legendary seven Chaos Emeralds. Coming from Ancients and searched for basically everyone in this series just from how powerful they are. Metal himself has used them on some occasions. They are a source of infinite power, and their power can heal someone and their consciousness, give life and revive people from death, restore lost memories, and many, many more. Though, Metal’s favorite use of them is to of course, juice up that energy. He has used them both to power up [seen in the GIF above], giving him a massive power boost and the capability to completely body his opponents, or to transform into his invulnerable golden form, which will be covered later.

Master Emerald

“The Master Emerald. The ‘controller.’ One of the most powerful gems in the world with the ability to neutralize the Chaos Emeralds.”

By no means an exaggeration of Metal. The Master Emerald is the ultimate font of power in the Sonic universe. Its power is omnipresent, existing across all the space-time continuum, and having the capability of neutralizing the power of the Chaos Emeralds, it shows why every villain tries to steal it; it can even restore the entire planet from when Eggman split it into different pocket dimensions (weirdly enough). Metal Sonic used this powerful Emerald to achieve greater forms that will be talked about later.

Abilities

Cell

Bio-Android Physiology

_{Nobody CARES about King Cold}

Cell’s physiology is incredibly unique, even by the standards of the already unique physiology of many of Dragon Ball’s most iconic characters. Created via the harvested cells of the universe’s strongest fighters, Cell’s genetic make-up includes that of Humans via Krillin and Tien, Saiyans via Goku and Vegeta, Namekians via Piccolo, and Frost Demons via Frieza and King Cold. Due to this composition, Cell has access to and seemingly far more potent versions of much of these race’s signature physiological features, which shall be gone over sequentially based on its importance to one of Cell’s listed abilities.

It is worth noting that Cell has shown techniques in media like the anime adaptation and video games that’re implied to come from fighters whose DNA he did not inherit in the original manga (that being the human Z-Fighters), though said additions do not really add anything to his core physiology. Of course we aren’t going to explain what a human is and if you want to know what a human is… there are sources that are available and we would suggest looking into them. Because not knowing what humankind is in this day and age is quite concerning. Huh, deja-vu.

Saiyan Physiology

The famed Saiyan Warrior Race, feared across the universe on some level by all of its inhabitants for their infamous ability to rise in power in scenarios that should be impossible. Due to being composed of cells from Goku and Vegeta, Cell shares every inherent trait attributed to the Saiyan race such as Ki Control, absurdly high strength, stamina, speed, and more. However, the most terrifying ability of the Saiyan race is also their most infamous, which is their innate ability to grow stronger when on the brink of/recovering from the brink of death, known in-series as a Zenkai Boost.

Whether it be self-inflicted, at the hands of an ally, or due to facing a particularly powerful opponent, a Saiyan’s power will boost to almost impossible levels upon coming close to and recovering from death. Cell himself actually has one of the most impressive Zenkai Boosts in the series, going from being near-effortlessly destroyed by Super Saiyan 2 Gohan who was holding back to breaking Gohan’s arm with one attack. Other examples of ludicrous Zenkai Boosts include Vegeta in the Namek Saga going from barely being able to hold back Frieza’s 1st Form to being able to (somewhat) survive Frieza’s Final Form for a time, Goku in the Namek Saga going from a power level of 90,000 to 3,000,000 after his fight with Captain Ginyu, or Bardock in the Granolah Arc gaining a massive boost to his power against Gas without needing to heal.

It should of course be noted however that not every serious injury leads to a Zenkai Boost, an obvious example would be Cell himself, who received 0 indication of this even activating up until his self-destruction against Gohan despite receiving injuries such as this, this, and this, which could likely be in-part due to other factors like his regenerative ability making it more difficult to determine what the “brink of death” could be for Cell. Zenkai’s have also been noted in material such as the Dragon Ball Super manga to essentially taper off after enough of them occur, however this idea is contradicted plenty of times in later arcs of the manga, and was merely a hypothesis given by Future Trunks to explain Goku Black’s constantly rising power.

Finally, while Zenkai Boosts are responsible for the most drastic leaps seen in the series, a weaker but more frequent variation of the ability can be found in almost all Saiyans, which is the idea that Saiyans grow stronger the longer they fight and are pushed past their preconceived limits. This is stated plenty of times throughout the series, being introduced as early as the Namek Saga all the way to interviews during Battle of God’s movie release still affirming the idea.

Namekian Physiology

From Piccolo, Cell inherited the boons of his Namekian heritage. Namekians only need water to survive, have far longer lifespans than humans, have advanced hearing capabilities, and the ability to stretch their limbs long distances to catch unsuspecting foes. Warrior Namekians like Piccolo can also grow into a kaiju, allowing for them to crush smaller foes into bits. All of this is nice and all, but it pales in comparison to their greatest strength in the form of their healing factor. Namekians are able to regenerate from stabs to lost limbs to even losing everything but their head, as long as they have the stamina for it and their head is intact. In the anime exclusive Garlic Jr. saga, it is implied Piccolo’s Namekian healing factor gave him immunity or some way to reject the Black Water Mist, which converts those infected into bloodthirsty demon clansmen obedient to Garlic Jr. All that being said, Cell’s bio-android physiology seems to have let him push this regeneration to the absolute highest extreme.

As long as his core cell cluster remains intact, Cell is capable of completely rebuilding himself. Even if that microscopic cluster of cells is all that is left after an attack, Cell will be able to regenerate his body at full strength like nothing ever happened. Not only that, regenerating from critical damage will also make him grow even stronger, which is due to Zenkai Boosts (mentioned previously under Sayan physiology). One common misunderstanding comes from Cell’s own explanation in Chapter 413, where he suggests that his regeneration depends on a core lump located specifically in his head. However, this doesn’t hold up when we go back to earlier events. In Chapter 401, Cell survives and regenerates even after his upper body, including his head, has been completely destroyed. This directly contradicts the idea that a head-based core is required for his regeneration to activate, and indicates he can move the core to other parts of his body. His statement being wrong is made outright true with Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot having him tell Goku that he lied about the core placement to begin with.

Frieza-Race Physiology

No, the species still does not have an official name. Tied to his cells from Frieza, Cell gains the perks of his race’s physiology. This includes boons such as an extended lifespan, not needing oxygen to survive, and resistance to extreme temperatures. It’s not as beneficial in the long-run as his Saiyan and Namekian physiology, but it does have its perks.

Ki Manipulation

Ki is a natural energy present in all living beings, drawing on the power of an individual’s life force for incredible abilities. While his fellow Androids have artificial supplies, Cell’s status as a bio-android means that his ki is natural instead of artificial. Notably though, the Daizenshuu does state he has access to 17 and 18’s unlimited ki reserves, which involve artificial ki supplies lacking the life force aspect of normal Ki. This would give him unlimited stamina and Ki supplies, though it’s awkward given Cell does seem to get tired in fights. Ki has been used by Cell to sense the ki of others and locate them, lower his own exerted ki to hide himself from similar detection-based abilities, fly, shoot out blasts of energy, lift people and objects with telekinesis, and even harness it into a threatening aura to change the weather or even shake the planet itself.

Cell can also concentrate his ki into a variety of techniques, including both original moves as well as copied ones from other fighters:

Unique Techniques

• Zetsumei Bullet: Cell punches at the opponent at their neck, seemingly breaking it as the opponent falls to the ground. Cell walks up to them, proceeds to pick them up, and finally blasts them at their chest.
• Psycho Crash: Cell will grab the opponent with his telekinesis as he does hand motions to slash at them.
• Big Bang Crash: Cell extends his hand forward and forms a red sphere of energy, then shoots it out to his enemy.
  • Super Big Bang Crash: Cell traps the opponent in a Big Bang Crash, then shoots multiple at the opponent which causes a massive explosion.
• Negative Power Rain: Cell punches them away and proceeds to use Vegeta’s technique. If you guess right, he fires a volley of ki blasts at his opponent.
• All Clear: Cell raises his left hand in the air, charges his ki in the air, and does a swiping motion to create explosions around the area.
• Perfect Shot: Cell shoots a powerful finger beam from well, his finger.
• Ultimate Blitz: Cell does a single handed wave of energy at his opponent or he fires multiple waves of energy at them.
  • Ultimate Wave: Cell shoots a vast green energy sphere on the ground which causes a huge shockwave.
• Time to Die: Cell swats the opponent away as they crash into the ground. He proceeds to shoot a powerful finger beam at them while they lie down.
• Gravity Impact: Cell shoots out a powerful Kiai from his hand as it creates a shockwave. 
• Unforgivable: When Cell wants to say fuck you to everyone, he goes to ballon himself to size as energy emits from him. If a minute passes as he says, he proceeds to blow himself along with the planet he is standing on. Attacking him in that state also causes him to explode earlier.
• Android Barrier: The user goes to focus their power into a barrier which blocks any oncoming attacks. Cell used this to protect himself after he absorbed Android 18 thanks to absorbing Android 17.
  • Perfect Barrier: If Cell is backed into a corner, Cell curls his arms and legs together as he charges himself around a purple aura around his body. He brings them apart and unleashes a purple barrier, helping him block oncoming attacks.

Copied Techniques

• Kamehameha: A technique from the Turtle Hermit himself, Master Roshi. Thanks to having Goku’s cells, Cell is able to use this attack as he can fire a powerful blue ki blast with both hands. His own signature Kamehameha, Solar Kamehameha, stated himself that it’s enough energy to wipe out the Solar System.
• Special Beam Cannon: Having Piccolo’s cells, he is able to use the Special Beam Cannon. As such, he charges energy from his finger tips before firing at his opponent to pierce them.
• Solar Flare: A technique from Crane School gained due to having Tien’s cells. Cell puts his hands closer to his face and projects a blinding white light, blinding any foe caught in his vision. Cell uses this either to escape from the opponent or to gain an advantage against them.
• Spirit Bomb: A technique from King Kai but thanks to Goku’s cells, he can call the planet for energy as he throws the large ball of energy at his opponent. While he never used it in canon, he is able to use it in games such as the Budokai series, Xenoverse series, and even Kakarot. He stated that he could use it if he felt like it in the manga.
• Death Beam: Inherited from Frieza, Cell can fire a purple beam from his finger tip or fire them rapidly in quick succession. He even has Full Power Death Beam from King Cold as he used this one to kill Future Trunks when he came back after regenerating.
• Galick Gun: An anime-only move as he gained this from Vegeta’s cells. Cell curls up his fingers and places his hands together at his chest. He charges enough ki between them before firing right at his opponent.
• Multiform Technique: A move invented by the Triclops which is from Tien’s cells. Cell can split his power evenly around 4 clones to quad-team against his opponent. Interesting to note that while the downside of using it makes you weaker, Tien stated Cell didn’t even get weaker at all from using it.
• Destructo Disc: Another anime only move as he gained this from having Krillin’s cells. Cell can launch a razor sharp disk of ki from his hands that can cut through almost everything, even opponents stronger than the user itself. He can even use both of his hands to launch two of them.
• Death Saucer: One more anime move for the road as he gained this from, you guessed it, having Frieza’s cells. Cell can fire a magenta razor sharp disk of ki like the Destruco Disc, but it can be manually controlled by Cell’s telekinesis. He can use both hands to shoot both of them.
• Dodon Ray: A technique from Crane School invented by Mercenary Tao but inherited by having Tien’s cells, Cell can fire a superheated beam from his finger at his opponent. While he never did this in the manga or anime, he can do it in Xenoverse games.
• Tri-Beam: Gained by having Tien’s cells, Cell can perform the Tri-Beam as he shoots out diamond-shape ki attack from his hands at his opponent. Again, while he never did this in manga or anime, he is able to use it in Xenoverse games.
• Supernova: Lastly from Frieza’s cells is the Supernova. Cell raises his finger as he gathers ki which forms a yellow-like sphere that looks like the sun. Once finished charging, Cell throws it down at his target. Again, while Cell never did this in the manga or anime, he did this in the Xenoverse games.

Absorption

Cell can use his tail to stab his target and suck all the organic extract out of them, giving him energy; it’s actually how he eats… do you think it slurps the contents like a plastic straw? Well, stronger people aren’t as affected as the regular joe, but it can still be one hell of a hit, like it happened with Piccolo. Of course he can’t use this on mechanical beings, as it was unable to pierce through Android 16’s skin. How fortunate in a match like this. On top of it, Cell can also turn his stinger into a giant sucker that can swallow “special beings”, being the method he used to absorb 17 and 18 and eventually reach perfection. He didn’t kill them, rather they fused with him on a cellular level.

Instant Transmission

A technique copied from Goku, Cell can use Instant Transmission to teleport. Specifically, he senses the Ki of others like a sort of beacon, before warping to be in close proximity to them. However, Instant Transmission can seemingly be used for shorter distances the user is aware of or during fights without any sort of specific beacon, nor is the iconic finger pose required for utilizing the technique. Further distances covered with the technique may require concentration though to stay on track.

Resistances

• Extreme Cold/Heat and Cosmic Radiation: Cell has DNA from Frieza, who is capable of surviving in space as well as the destruction of Planet Namel’s core.
• Electricity Manipulation: Cell has DNA from Frieza, who survived being struck by lightning with absolutely 0 issue.
• Paralysis Inducement: Goku was able to escape Frieza’s Imprisonment Ball.
• Disease Manipulation: Cell has DNA from Goku & Vegeta, who, along with all Saiyans, are immune to the Galactic Patrol’s Extinction Bomb, which unleashes a planet-wide virus designed to specifically kill only a single species.
• Mental Manipulation: Cell has DNA from Piccolo, who was capable of resisting the effects of the Black Water Mist and pretended to be mind controlled.
• Transmutation/Petrification: While Cell himself hasn’t shown the ability, Future Trunks was able to resist the effects of Dabura’s spit, which turns its victims to stone, by coating himself in Ki.
• Soul Manipulation: While not a traditional resistance, characters in Dragon Ball have been able to survive and even keep fighting after being drained of their Ki; Ki in Dragon Ball is synonymous with the soul, which would mean they can survive their soul being absorbed and tampered with.

Metal Sonic

Badnik Physiology

Metal Sonic is a Badnik made by Eggman. His robotic body has a few specifications given from the Sonic CD manual – as seen in the image above. Translations below:

• Main CPU: LIPS A.I. EGGMAN Custom Chip (3 units built in the head area), logical operation is performed by intra-CPU Fuzzy interaction, each part supported by pseudo-neuro connection
• Sub CPU: Neo Super FX DPS Chip for power control (5 units built in each section of the body), NEXT RISK Chip-III for image correction (8 units built in the eye area *RGB distinction)
• Frame: Made from monocoque titanium
• Main engine: 250cc 4 valve orgone fusion engine, maximum output: 55ps/6800rpm, maximum torque: 7.54Kg-m/4000rpm
• Secondary engine: Tesla Power Coil electromagnetic induction power generation, maximum output: 256Kw

Metal also displays additional functions. For example, he has an in-built Chaos Emerald tracker on him, and, due to being a robot, he has infinite stamina so he never tires. Additionally, as a Badnik, Metal Sonic has access to the Eggnet at his disposal, which gives him access to a GPS and multiple failsafes as a defense against hacking.

Spin Attack, Spin-Dash
& Homing Attack

As expected of being Sonic’s doppelganger, Metal Sonic – much like his rival – is capable of curling himself into a ball to smash enemies with devastating spin attacks.The Spin-Dash is a “power-packed maneuver” that involves spinning in place to build up speed and momentum for high-speed movement, greatly increasing Metal Sonic’s speed and turning himself into a dangerous, unstoppable force. Similarly, the Homing Attack is a variation of the Spin Attack; Metal Sonic can lock onto the nearest foe after using a Spin Attack and immediately home in on them with another Spin Attack.

Flight

Metal Sonic can fly using the rocket booster on his back, perfect to match the speed of Sonic himself. In Neo Metal Sonic and greater forms, he can freely fly without needing this rocket booster.

Black Shield

One of his most iconic abilities; a near impenetrable shield that protects Metal Sonic from any attack or projectiles. It can even trap beings, like when Metal Sonic caught Surge with it and had her hand stuck inside the shield.

Energy Shield

Similarly to how he can make an incredibly durable shield, in the OVA, Metal Sonic can create energy shields around himself to protect from damage. He used it against Sonic, trapping him inside a forcefield alongside Metal himself to fly and break anything in his way.

Plasma Pulse Attack

Metal Sonic can fire a laser out of his chest, which can be useful for surprise attacks up close or at range.

Teleportation

Metal Sonic can seemingly teleport in an instant, adding more options to his maneuverability.

V. Maximum Overdrive

Metal Sonic can overload his circuits which creates a golden aura around him as he boosts forth damaging anyone or anything that gets in his way. It is stated to increase his speed by four times. A downside to this is that since this offensive matrix overloads his circuits, Metal Sonic can’t use it for too long or it could potentially destroy him. Even in short bursts, it wears him down for a bit.

Ring Spark Field

Metal Sonic is able to use a radiation attack that causes the user to release a powerful electric field attack, however this ability requires a short charge before using and lowers Metal Sonic’s speed for a short duration.

Electrokinesis

As seen in Sonic Heroes, Neo Metal Sonic has the ability to generate electricity and shoot bolts of lightning to the skies.

Speed Zap

In Sonic Speed Simulator, Metal Sonic can completely nullify speed boosts by zapping your speed, returning players to their base speed.

Bio-Data Copy

Metal Sonic’s most iconic trait is the capability to scan and copy the abilities of his foes. But this extends beyond a simple ability or technique copy; Metal Sonic can copy even his foes intelligence and resistances. Copying “bio-data” is, funnily enough, not limited to just biological beings, as in Sonic Heroes, Metal Sonic was capable of copying Team Dark, which included E-123 Omega, a robot. Metal Sonic doesn’t even need to directly scan a character for this to work, either. In IDW Sonic issue 10, just from receiving direct hits from Shadow was enough for him to copy the Ultimate Lifeform’s bio-data. Much previously, in issue 7, he also did the same to copy Sonic’s bio-data.

Metal Sonic has copied the bio-data of many characters. Notable ones will be listed below:

Sonic’s Bio-Data

Of course Metal Sonic would copy his rival’s bio-data for himself. With Sonic’s bio-data, Metal Sonic has access to his fast-paced attacks, wind attacks and speed. Could include moves like the Sonic Tornado, which creates a miniature tornado to send opponents flying upwards; the Parry, to parry attacks and slow down the perception of time to attack right after, and many other abilities. In Sonic Rivals, Metal copies Sonic’s Sonic Boom move, which activates a boost – greatly amplifying Sonic’s speed – while also giving Sonic invulnerability to damage.

Shadow’s Bio-Data

Copying Sonic wasn’t enough, he also copied the Ultimate Lifeform himself. Shadow’s abilities come very in-handy for Metal, letting him perform a wide variety of Chaos energy techniques. He can use Chaos Spear, to launch a good amount of energy spears at his opponents, that can not only stun them, but also track enemies and negate force fields. Although never displayed, Metal Sonic could also utilize techniques such as the Chaos Snap to quickly teleport (not inconsistent with his teleportation), use the upgraded version of the Chaos Spear called Chaos Lance, use Chaos energy projectiles that manifest in thin air like Roaming Chaos and Chaos Magic, and the Chaos Blast, capable of creating massive explosions made out of Chaos energy. Finally, of course, there’s the Chaos Control, Shadow’s go-to technique, but that will be covered in its own section later on.

Silver’s Bio-Data

To complete with the Hedgehog Trio, Metal Sonic also copied Silver’s bio-data, giving him the power of psychokinesis to freely move and crush anything with powerful telekinesis, freely fly, shoot psychic energy – even in the form of cuts -, teleport himself and others, generate shockwaves to stun enemies, and potentially even give him a limited precognition. In Sonic Rivals, Metal Sonic copies Silver’s ESP ability, which – as seen above – lets him use mind control to attack a target’s mind, confusing their sense of direction.

Espio’s Bio-Data

Copied from one of the members of Team Chaotix, Metal Sonic can use the master of ninjutsu Espio’s abilities. As from what you’d expect of a chameleon, this lets Metal camouflage himself. More notably, in Sonic Rivals 2, copying Espio lets Metal Sonic use the Chroma Camo ability, which – as seen in the image above – makes Metal Sonic invisible to his opponents. Not only that, it also makes the user intangible to attacks.

Chaos’ Bio-Data

Metal Sonic is capable of shifting into a puddle and other lifeforms via this liquid substance, which he acquired from copying the data of Chaos – also granting him some sort of regeneration. Metal Sonic has taken the appearance of the likes of organic beings such as Eggman, to machinery like E-10000B, to even a broken Eggman dummy. Not even other machines like Omega or even Eggman himself could see through Metal Sonic’s facade.

Other Notable Bio-Data

• Tails’ Bio-Data: From Tails, Metal Sonic gains notable flight height boost. Not only that, but since he could copy Eggman’s intelligence, this could likely mean he had Tails’ as well, and – as we know – Tails is incredibly smart. This little fox is able to visualize equations and perform calculations in the middle of a battle to predict movements and deduce the most efficient way to counter.
• Knuckles’ Bio-Data: From Knuckles, Metal gets his amazing physical strength, the ability to summon meteors and manipulate fire on his attacks (THE FLAMES OF DISASTER). In Sonic Rivals, Knuckles’ Knuckle Slam move causes explosive shockwaves all around him. Knuckles’ punch shockwaves can even stun enemies.
• Amy’s Bio-Data: From Amy, Metal Sonic can summon her Piko Piko Hammer to smash opponents and create gusts of wind. Amy can summon gift bombs, hearts, food, and… a Sonic duplicate to aid her in battle?
• Rouge’s Bio-Data: From Rouge, Metal Sonic can access the move Bat Guard, which summons multiple bat bombs to attack a rival.
• Vector’s Bio-Data: Look man he can play tennis with you by manifesting musical notes from his mouth, that’s kinda cool, Metal Sonic definitely should do this.

Chaos Control

Chaos Control is one of the strongest techniques at Metal Sonic’s disposal. Copied from Shadow the Hedgehog, when the technique is utilized, space and time contort to the user’s will. Metal can do all sorts of things with the technique, such as reality warping the fabric of the universe, teleport himself and other people/objects, even interdimensionally, time travel as long as there’s two users doing the technique, triplicate himself, and create distortions in space-time as a mean of attack. It should be noted that Metal Sonic never displayed these abilities, but it’s not hard to believe he can manage to do them all.

But there is one aspect of Chaos Control that Metal Sonic has mastered: the ability to slow and stop time itself, to the point Metal can do the technique without the use of any Chaos Emerald, which is incredibly impressive. Black Doom also states that the Chaos Control can get better and better by collecting more Chaos Emeralds. Possessing Chaos Control itself also makes Metal Sonic innately immune to opposing attempts of stopping time, like how Metal Overlord completely negated Shadow’s Chaos Control.

Resistances

• Extreme Cold and Cosmic Radiations: Metal Sonic can freely travel in space without any issues.
• Electricity Manipulation: Can withstand attacks from Ivory Wisps, which do said effects, and as Neo Metal, was completely fine after being struck by lightning
• Time Eater’s Erasure: Metal Sonic is shown fine after Time Eater erased all of time and space.
• Time Stops: By naturally knowing how to use Chaos Control, Metal Sonic is immune to time stops. See Chaos Control section above.

Resistances for Metal Sonic will be scaled through Sonic, as not only he’s based on him, but has copied his data and bio-data.

• Poisons and Chemical Products: Can travel through the most dangerous areas of Chemical Plant Zone without trouble
• Corrosion: Can withstand the acid of poisoned frogs and Slime Djinns
• Extreme Temperatures: Can withstand hot and cold temperatures like Lava Reef Zone and Ice Cap, as well as tank magma attacks, falling directly into the Sun and breaking free from being frozen solid.
• Curses: Resisted being cursed (lol)
• Space-Time Manipulation: Able to withstand Chaos Control-based techniques that distort space-time
• Transmutation and Deconstruction: Sonic can withstand the effects of Blue Wisps, which do said effects. He can also break free from being petrified in Secret Rings by Gargoyle Djinn.
• Gravity Manipulation: Can withstand the gravitational pulls of a black hole in Shuffle.

Forms

Cell

Cell is similar to Frieza (prior to Resurrection F anyways) in that he doesn’t have explicit in-battle transformations that he uses to empower himself. Rather, his forms are actually weaker states compared to his true Perfect Form. While Cell did have to work over the course of the series to reach his max, his max has since become his proper base form, and so listing forms below Perfect Cell is unnecessary. However to cover everything (and for the sake of having fun) we’ll be listing his prior forms regardless.

Larva

“Once I revert to an egg I must bury myself underground for three years. There my form matures.”

Cell’s initial larvae form from which he emerged from Dr. Gero’s lab. There isn’t quite much to talk about this form other than that Cell grows out of it and transforms into his first “Imperfect” state and later reverts to it as to hibernate after time travel. Though this isn’t to say this version of Cell is completely harmless… at least when looking outside the manga/anime. Cell’s Larva form is shown to be able to fight weaker Ki users in Dragon Ball: The Breakers, but other than that is relatively featless.

1st Form

Cell’s proper “adult” state after emerging from his larval form. While still lacking his Android siblings needed to reach perfection, this version of Cell is nonetheless a killing machine who managed to murder a version of Future Trunks who returned from shutting down the Androids via remote. Using his extendable tail and its stinger, he could either drain his victims dry or swallow them whole as outlined in the Absorption section. A function we’ve also seen only Imperfect Cell do is the ability to revert back into his larval form, having done so to fit inside Trunks’ time machine. From there he reverted back into an egg and buried himself underground for three years until his form matured once more.

Even while weakened from his recent emergence from his larval state, Cell is stated to be a composite of all the warriors that compose him and has mastery of all their techniques, including the Kamehameha, Solar Flare, and Spirit Bomb. After absorbing hundreds of thousands of more victims Cell’s power grew beyond the likes of Post-Fusion Piccolo’s and he could generate a yellow Super Saiyan-like aura.

2nd Form

Also known as his “Semi-Perfect” transformation, this state is achieved when Cell absorbs Android 17, causing him to grow to such a level of power that lets him practically walk through Android 16 with no difficulty. This is in-spite of the fact that Android 16 fought relatively evenly with Imperfect Cell, with guidebooks and Android 16 himself stating that the two were previously equal in power.

Given the sheer power difference demonstrated between him and 16 and with how powerful Cell got from absorbing normal humans, Cell’s 2nd state should be well beyond “just” adding Android 17’s power onto his own. In The Legendary Manga guides, this form is placed alongside the Great Ape and Goku’s training with Korin as a power-up, directly being stated to be a 10x increase in stats from his first form. Absorbing the Androids is also stated to boost Cell’s intelligence and mental strength, making him an even more cunning and resilient fighter to go up against.

Perfect Form

Cell’s “final” Perfect form after absorbing both Androids 17 and 18. As with all his previous forms, Cell gains an enormous increase in power. So much so that Vegeta, who previously sensed his Imperfect and Semi-Perfect forms, originally believed he could handle Cell if he absorbed Android 18. Of course the Prince of all Saiyans is proven wrong when he finds himself toyed around by Cell and defeated with no difficulty. Even as he’s adjusting to his new form, he has no issues playing around with Future Trunks in his Super Saiyan Grade 3 form and later we discover that even Goku, whose Super Saiyan Grade 4 form at just half power eclipsed all other Z-Fighters after training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, was ultimately weaker than Perfect Cell to where he didn’t think their fight would be worth continuing. Of course this was all part of Goku’s plan to get Gohan to prove himself and defeat Cell, but all this proves that Cell’s Perfect state is a power boost far greater than any previous jump he’d had.

But of course strength isn’t everything. As mentioned with his second form, Cell’s battle intelligence increases after every evolution. We can see this in him using a wider variety of techniques in his (admittedly short) number of fights after turning Perfect such as Krillin’s Destructo Discs, Piccolo’s Special Beam Cannon, Tien’s Multi-Form technique, and Frieza’s Death Beams (though this may just be because he’s actually challenged now/not getting stomped). He also gains the unique ability to spawn up to seven miniature clones of himself he calls “Cell Jrs.” from his tail. Though this knowledge can get thrown out the window when Cell becomes…

Perfect Form (Enraged)

Due to his rage towards Gohan after being slapped around, Cell’s rage misguided him into prioritizing raw power with this form. This state amplifies his raw power greatly, but has the consequence of a noticeable speed drop. This was addressed by Trunks, as he recognized this was the same form Cell showed him that was a copy of Super Saiyan Grade 3, revealing the form to Trunks to explain its weaknesses (which shows just how out of control Cell actually got when deciding to use this form).

Super Perfect Cell

Cell’s strongest form and his definitive base form prior to his demise, attained after a massive Zenkai Boost from surviving his self-destruction and his core cells recalling his body’s previous state. He has all of his previous abilities of course, being at the pinnacle of his power now, truly deserving the title of “Perfect”. He was strong enough to match a limit breaking half-strength Super Saiyan 2 Gohan in a life or death beam struggle, and a single blast from him broke Gohan at a power level that was previously dunking on Cell’s perfect and enraged forms. Speaking of dunking…

Perfect Basketball Player

Yes, dear readers, Cell definitely knows balling.

Metal Sonic

Neo Metal Sonic

Also known simply as “Neo Metal,” this is an upgraded version of Metal Sonic’s base form rather than a standard transformation. In this form, Metal gains access to many abilities, including shapeshifting, a voice, and the aforementioned ability to copy bio-data. Metal transformed himself into that and turned on the Doctor, took over his entire Empire, and used it to lure the Sonic heroes to take their bio-data, aiming to defeat them and create a robot kingdom.

Eggman would later upgrade Metal back into this form during the events of Sonic Forces, though the process was not completed until after the war ended. This led Metal to search the world using the egg fleet to try and find his master after taking command of the Eggman Empire in his absence—this time with his rebellious coding removed.

In this form, Metal retains many characteristics of his base appearance, including his slick blue paint, black-and-red eyes, and rocket engine. New additions include five long quills with white stripes running along them and his eyes, more pronounced body armor on his arms and legs, larger shoulder pads, gauntlets with white outlines, and a black cape around his waist—fitting for a robot ruler.

Kai

Metal Sonic Kai is a form granted to Metal Sonic by the Dark Ring after being heavily damaged. Once in this form, he proceeds to attack Knuckles and the Chaotix as the final boss of the game. Despite his immense power, he is defeated by the Chaotix. Note that this form comes from a different Metal Sonic unit; however, it should still be something the main Metal Sonic would easily be capable of if he also used a Dark Ring.

In this form, Metal becomes essentially a robotic kaiju, and his blue color scheme turns into a sharp red with a monster-like face. His quills, ears, and the spines on his back become longer and sharper. Metal Sonic Kai also has separated eyes that resemble a visor, with a long, sharp nose located between them. Additionally, he has a large mouth with sharp metal teeth inside. On his torso, he has a black circular depression with a yellow bulb. His arms and legs are separated from his torso, with large power tubes exposed on his body.

Kai is able to use his limbs to attack at longer distances when the player is far away, he is able to crush the player with his large hands. Kai can also shoot a plasma pulse attack from his chest, similar to his base form.

Metal Overlord

After taking the bio-data of Team Sonic, Team Dark, Team Rose and Team Chaotix, along with the Data of Chaos, Metal began to use the debris from the final fortress to enter a new form, Metal Madness, later evolving one final time into his ultimate form, Metal Overlord! Metal in this state becomes a giant robotic dragon with wings to flight, can shoot crystalized projectiles that can seal opponents in crystal force fields, a massive amount of missiles, spin fast enough to generate tornadoes, lift and throw egg ships with ease, generate electricity on his tail to attack foes, and uses the powerful Chaos Control. Arguably the coolest of Metal Sonic’s forms.

Metal in this state was so powerful, it took the might of Super Sonic, Tails and Knuckles to take down Metal Overlord. During his battle with the transformed team Sonic, Metal would begin to express his beliefs and his plan for world domination after he defeats team Sonic. Later Metal was expressing his superiority and even mocking Shadow in his later fight. Wanting to prove himself as the real Sonic. The real ultimate lifeform.

Super Neo Metal Sonic

Super Neo Metal Sonic is a transformation that combines the mighty power of the Master Emerald. Metal was able to secure the Master Emerald and use it as a throne to power his now-captured and fortified Angel Island. When Sonic and Knuckles entered the island to take back the Emerald, Metal transformed using the Emerald’s power. In this state, Metal’s innate abilities far surpass his powers in his normal state. He was able to toy with Sonic and Knuckles with little effort. The only visual change this form gives Metal is a shiny new golden paint job and the super aura that many Chaos-powered super forms gain from Chaos energy. Metal’s strength and speed have increased significantly, and he can now shoot energy beams and electricity amplified by Chaos. As a Super form, Metal also has the great benefit of its invulnerability, making him completely immune to physical damage, as well as other abilities such as creating hollow duplicates and other constructs, upgrade the Chaos Spear to Spear of Light, that is capable of closing dimensional portals, use the Shield of Light to block and reflect projectiles, absorb light to make himself stronger, attract and regenerate Rings, and many more. Super Neo has also gone against the likes of Super Sonic, though it’s expected for Super Neo to be on the same level, as he uses the same energy as Super Sonic himself.

Shadow was able to sneak-attack Metal and knock him out of his base form; however, this seems to be possible due to super forms being affected by Chaos-related users, as writer Ian Flynn himself suggests so, or attacks interacting with these forms, similar to a certain incident before.

Master Overlord

After Shadow entered the fight and nullified Metal’s Super form by surprise, he had to quickly change his strategy and, by having the bio-data of both Sonic and Shadow plus the Master Emerald at his disposal, transform into this giant behemoth, reminiscent of Metal Overlord. By sacrificing his “Super state” power, he became Master Overlord. He’s significantly stronger than Neo Metal Sonic; Sonic himself said he needed the combined effort of everyone [like, 11 people] to defeat him, and he also has the ability to fly.

His one big weakness is the fact that he has the Master Emerald exposed, and – in the end – it’s how he’s ultimately defeated; with Knuckles’ using the advantage that everyone was fighting to remove the Master Emerald from his core and depower Metal Sonic.

Plush

The almighty form, Metal takes the form of a bootleg plush. This form transcends dimensions and can co-exist in the real world.

Support

Cell

Cell Juniors

As stated earlier in the Forms section, the Cell Jr.s are Cell’s kin that he spawns out of his tail. We see that he spawned specifically seven to battle the remaining Z-Fighters, though whether that’s his limit or if he can truly create more is unknown. We do know though that these little blue nightmares are incredibly powerful, as each one in the manga is portrayed as being strong enough to decimate the tired Goku, the human Z-Fighters, and even Piccolo, with SSJ Grade 2 Vegeta and Trunks being the only ones to truly hold their own. The anime however raises their power, as they utterly toy with the Z-Fighters and one can even completely stop and toss away Vegeta’s Final Flash with little difficulty.

While they don’t seem to be particularly intelligent like their father (mother?), the Cell Jr.s do inherit Cell’s regeneration abilities. It’s revealed in Dragon Ball Super that the Cell Jr.s all survived their battle with Gohan and were just as strong as they’d ever been, and could be taught to learn behaviors and refrain from being violent as Android 17 trained them to help him protect Monster Island. Though this does mean that while they are all competent fighters and share Cell’s potent cellular regeneration, they are all incapable of growing in power given they are stated to have stayed the same power level after nearly a decade of training and didn’t seem to get a Zenkai boost despite having literally blown up into pieces akin to Cell’s near-death experience.

While they don’t do many complex moves in the manga, the anime depicts the Cell Jr.s as knowing the Z-Fighters’ moves such as the Destructo Disc, Kamehameha, Special Beam Cannon, and Tri-Beam, and other Dragon Ball media depict them as knowing the Solar Flare. Thus it’s likely that, at least in the anime, they share the same combat knowledge as Cell.

Metal Sonic

Silver Sonics

Little silver-colored mecha Sonics that Metal Sonic can call to aid him in a fight, like in Sonic Mania. These guys can jump and spin-dash themselves into whoever Metal Sonic needs to deal with. That’s it.

Feats

Cell

Overall

• Defeated Piccolo, Android 17, Android 16, Tien, Vegeta, Trunks, THE CHAMP (rigged), and Goku
• Killed Trunks, thousands of innocent civilians, hundreds of army soldiers, Android 16, Goku, King Kai, Bubbles, Gregory, Android 17, and Trunks again
• Absorbed Androids 17 and 18 to reach his perfect form, even surpassing it later on
• Plunged the world into absolute chaos and terror
• Nearly destroyed the planet on three separate occasions
• Makes Evo scream every time (hell they made ‘em restart the game for that once)

Power

• Cell’s first form was capable of shattering mountains by charging Ki
• After absorbing hundreds of thousands of people, easily snapped Piccolo’s neck and blasted through him
• Semi-Perfect Cell casually blows an island
• Charging his full power in Perfect Form shattered the Earth
• Perfect Cell’s Kamehameha could’ve destroyed the planet
• Cell’s self-destruction exploded King Kai’s entire planet
  • Would’ve destroyed the Earth if he wasn’t stopped
• Cell, in his Super Perfect Form, charged and fired a Kamehameha so powerful that it threatened to destroy the entire Solar System.
  • Not only is this supported by numerous guidebook statements, but the effects of the Kamehameha if it had won the beam clash are shown in the game Dragon Ball Z Kai: Ultimate Butoden. (1.053 KiloFOE)
  • In the Toei anime, after Cell uses Solar Flare to absorb 18, the Elder Namekian and Dende foresaw the collapse of the entire universe as he was transforming to become Perfect Cell; Later on, Elder Moori would feel Cell’s Ki all the way from Earth as he was charging the Solar Kamehameha, possibly implying this was the vision Moori and Dende had received. (Universal; See Before the Verdict)

Speed

• Dodges all of Piccolo’s attacks and perfectly (heh) retaliates
• Fights evenly with Goku, as seen in the GIF above
• Casually avoids Trunks’ attacks in Super Saiyan Grade 3
• Fires a Kamehameha to space in short panels
• Starts moving faster than what Goku can keep up
• Fires a Death Beam that SSJ Gohan barely dodges

Durability

• Cell tanks Piccolo’s Light Grenade that was blowing up an island
• No sells a punch from Android 16 after transforming into Semi-Perfect Cell
• Endures getting hit by Tien’s Tri-Beam multiple times repeatedly
• As seen in the GIF above, is completely still while getting hit by Krillin and Trunks
• Military bombs do nothing to him
• Survives Gohan’s Kamehameha that overpowered his own
• Survives SSJ Vegeta’s Final Flash
• Super Perfect Cell tanks SSJ Vegeta’s Ki Blasts (he shuts down him right immediately after)

Metal Sonic

Overall

• Has proven to be Sonic’s equal multiple times
• Gained free will and took over the Eggman Empire
• Successfully copied the data of Team Sonic, Team Dark, Team Rose and Team Chaotix to become Metal Overlord
• Matched Super Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles as Metal Overlord
• Acted in Eggman’s place while he was out
• Is the cheapest boss in Sonic The Fighters (EMERALD DIVE SPAM!!)
• Is one of the most iconic doppelgängers in video game history

Power

• As seen above, bitch slapped Sonic (lol)
• Had the power to ram clear through an Eggman warship.
• Knocked Ifrit into the air
• Hit Metal Sonic 3.0 so hard it breaks the ground
• Fought and beat Shadow in a fight
• Neo Metal Sonic’s lightning bolt destroys a huge part of Eggman’s ship
• The Stalactite Feat™
• (Super Neo Metal Sonic) Wipes the floor with Sonic and Knuckles
• (Metal Overlord) Lifts and throws Eggman’s battleships with ease

Speed

• As seen in the GIF above, is fast enough to create after-images
• Is constantly racing and battling against Sonic the Hedgehog
• In the OVA, Metal Sonic flies from one part of the planet to another (Mach 355)
• Able to keep up with Shadow in combat
• Even with a speed-boosting item, Sonic is outsped by Metal Sonic
• Moves so fast Silver can’t lock his psychokinesis on him
• While damaged, Metal Sonic flew from Little Planet to earth (Mach 58 to 3.57 C) 
• (Metal Overlord) Moves fast enough to create tornadoes
• (Super Neo Metal Sonic) Completely blitzes base Sonic and Knuckles
• (Super Neo Metal Sonic) Flies faster than Super Sonic

Durability

• Is constantly getting hit by Sonic
• Can withstand attacks by Surge
• Can take a hit from a fireball by Ifrit
• Survives the Death Egg II’s explosion
• Endures a giant Zavok’s breath slamming him to the ground
• (Super Neo Metal Sonic) Able to tank multiple hits from Super Sonic in their fight
• (Metal Overlord) Is so durable that Super Sonic’s regular attacks are useless

Scaling

Cell images by Blue Igneous. Metal Sonic images by ishi_yuki.

Cell

Given his defeat at the end of the, well, Cell Saga, Cell scaling to feats from future story arcs and their top characters is going to be a definite no in most cases. The exceptions being feats done by characters below his level, either due to them being in weaker forms than their peak or being weaker than the bio-android all together. More specifications will be given in respective sections.

Goku & Vegeta

During the Cell Saga, Cell was the one to outright kill Goku, and he made Vegeta eat dirt multiple times. Considering his extensive beam struggle with a nerfed yet still top tier level Super Saiyan 2 Gohan, Cell should absolutely scale to any feats performed by the Saiyan race during or before his story arc. For feats after Cell’s defeat, given how Goku and Vegeta grow in strength and acquire Super Saiyan 2 themselves, scaling Cell to them as soon as the electric sparks show up is a big cut off point. However, their base states even by the end of the Majin Buu Saga should be fine given how their rate of improvement isn’t that ridiculous.

• Vegeta casually destroyed Planet Arlia (Toei) (4.34 Quettatons of TNT)
• Vegeta was much stronger than his father during the Saiyan Saga; his father destroyed 3 planets with a handwave (Toei) (774.8 Ronnatons of TNT)
• Goku reached the moon in a few seconds with the Power Pole (12.8% SoL)
• Goku outsped Tenshinhan’s Solar Flare (21.21 c)
• Goku dodged meteors on top of his spaceship while flying to Namek at many times the speed of light (Toei) (9.5 trillion c)
• Goku flew across a large chunk of Otherworld to reach Hell in a short time frame (15.4 to 210.6 quadrillion C)
  • While Pikkon, who did the same feat, one shot Cell, that doesn’t change the fact base Goku did the feat as well. The Otherworld Tournament Arc takes place shortly after the Cell Games and it’s specified that only after the trip to Hell does Goku train and get stronger before his battle with Pikkon.

Other Z-Fighters

Given his performance against the strongest Super Saiyans, any other heroes of Earth being scaled to is a breeze for the bio-android. Even as far back as his first form, Cell could take Piccolo’s strongest attack for zero damage before breaking his neck with one blow. No debate needed here for notable non-Saiyan feats that occur before something like Dragon Ball Super.

• Yamcha dodges a laser from Chichi(4.18c)
  • They are stated to be light beams by the Daizenshuu
• Master Roshi destroyed the Moon (1.5 Yottatons of TNT)
• Piccolo destroyed the Moon
• Piccolo could fight Garlic Jr, who created a black hole(Toei) (452.376 Ronnatons)
  • Later in the Garlic Jr. arc, him powering up shook all of “The Heavenly Realm” and was going to destroy it with the Dead Zone. This dimension is a cosmic-sized space within the Lookout with multiple stars and planets and contains the Immortal Realm / Shinsenkai, which also contains numerous stars (270.19 ExaFOE)

Frieza Force

“Everyone knows Trunks is the coolest Dragon Ball character”, because after all he cut a Frieza stronger than his Namek self in half with one swing of his sword. Anyways, Cell killed that guy twice. Easy scaling to the entire pre-Dragon Ball Super era Frieza Force.

• A low-class Saiyan 1-shot a Cerealian that easily destroyed a Moon
• King Vegeta destroyed multiple planets by waving his hand (14 Ronnatons – 1.8 Quettatons)
• Destroyed Planet Vegeta(4.92 – 20 Quettatons of TNT)
  • Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot’s version of the planet’s resulting explosions gets up to 88.6 Quettatons
• Frieza destroyed Planet Namek and survived the explosion while completely out of Ki, with the explosion having “illuminated the galaxy” and was visible from outside of it (1.36 ExaFoe) (Toei)

Metal Sonic

Metal Sonic, as seen throughout this blog, has fought a plethora of characters. Most of the time, he fairly keeps up and even beats characters that are generally around the base form level, as well as characters that could scale to feats performed by one Chaos Emerald or two. Thus, he should get scaling to a majority of feats performed by the Sonic cast and individual Chaos Emeralds in base, as well as other machines or misc. feats. And, of course, there’s Metal’s Super forms. While Metal Sonic has not shown much to fight Super forms regularly, Metal Overlord did fight three Super forms at once in Sonic Heroes, and forms like Super Neo Metal Sonic fought Super Sonic, so he definitely can scale to the series’ peak. More elaboration on Metal Sonic and his scaling in Before the Verdict.

Sonic the Hedgehog

• Sonic moves fast enough to activate warp panels and travel through time
  • According to Sonic CD’s JP manual, characters need to move at light speed to activate the warp panels
• Omega claims Sonic could exceed light speed
• Sonic dodges Cyan Lasers, which are stated to be light speed
• Sonic overclocks the SPD meter (11.42 C)
• Sonic flies through interstellar distances (16 million C)
• Sonic outruns a Violet Void black hole
  • Violet Voids are stated to have event horizons
• Sonic somehow runs fast enough to restore space-time
• Sonic broke the chain link connected to Little Planet (3.282 teratons of TNT)
• Sonic withstands the explosion of the Paradox Prism, which shattered the entire universe and created the Shatterverse (Debatable)
• Super Sonic flew to the moon in a few seconds
• Super Sonic blasted a giant crater in The End

Dr. Eggman

• Eggman survives the Death Egg exploding
• Eggman survives the Death Egg II exploding
• The Final Egg Blaster destroys a group of stars (465 ExaFOE, 6 to 60 billion C)
• The Nega-Wisp Armor creates black holes
• The Egg Mobile survived being sucked into a Hyper Go On black hole, and said black hole would destroy Terminal Velocity (1.7 to 379 KiloFOE)

Silver & Shadow

• Silver stops the Death Egg with his telekinesis
• Silver’s Shield of Light blocks a shot from the Eclipse Cannon
• Super Silver lifts and throws the Metal Virus into the sun
• Shadow controls his movements while moving in a light speed circuit
• Shadow destroys the Death Egg with a Chaos Blast
• Super Shadow lifts and teleports the Black Comet into space

Chaos Emeralds

• When powered by 6 Chaos Emeralds, the Eclipse Cannon destroys half of the moon
• Sonic states that a Chaos Emerald can blow away a moon
• The Chaos Emeralds and Sol Emeralds were tearing apart the space-time continuum and merging their universes
• Sonic’s control over the Chaos Emeralds prevented his universe from destabilizing
• Eggman uses Chaos Control to split the planet into seven regions
  • Eggman uses the Chaos Emeralds to break the planet…again
• Shadow’s Chaos Control teleports him away from the Paradox Prism’s explosion
  • The Paradox Prism crunched the entire universe into nothing (1.46 quintillion C)
• A single Chaos Emerald moves piece of the planet
• The Ancients used the Chaos Emeralds to create Cyber Space

Final Bosses

• Perfect Chaos floods Station Square
• Void’s darkness would’ve eventually destroyed Maginaryworld
• Master Core ABIS creates a planet destroying black hole (6.5 FOE)
• The Egg Wizard has a planet busting laser
• Erazor Djinn had absorbed half of the Arabian Nights universe (½ Universal)
• Alf Layla wa-Layla was going to destroy the Arabian Nights and recreate it in his image
• Dark Gaia lifts Eggmanland and covers the planet in darkness
• The End destroys a planet
• SUPREME blocks The End’s planet busting laser
• The End boasts that they’ve destroyed stars
• Solaris would eventually consume all existing timelines (Low Multiversal to Multiversal+)
  • Solaris light spread across the universe, possibly all timelines (77 quadrillion Cto Infinite or Immeasurable)
  • Solaris eats dimensions for lunch
  • Solaris has absorbed countless dimensions
• Time Eatererasedallof time and space, reducing reality to a single white void (Universal to Low Multiversal/Multiversal+, 122 quadrillion – 6.652 quintillion C to Infinite)
  • The Time Eater and the Super Sonics flies through the End of Time, an infinite tunnel dimension described as a timestream
• Black Doom had influence over White Space and was preventing the time anomaly in White Space to heal (Low Multiversal to Multiversal+) (Debatable)
  • Shadow had to save “all of creation” from Black Doom
  • Black Doom envelops White Space in a Doom Zone (489 quadrillion C – 1.46 quintillion Cto Infinite) (Debatable)

Cosmology

Cell

While Dragon Ball has a complex (not like that shut up) cosmology, Cell wouldn’t reasonably scale to any of it past the base universe with higher end arguments. Thus, there isn’t any reason to go over it.

Metal Sonic

Summarizing it so we don’t have to dive so deep, as Cell doesn’t really have much in comparison. Let’s start by talking about the cosmology finite wise. There’s a lot of realms in the Sonic universe, and those include:

• Primary universe
• Chaotic Inferno
• Special Stages
• Shatterverse (5)
• Void
• Arabian Nights and Camelot
• Sol Dimension
• Cyber Space
• The Exception
• Maginaryworld and Dream Worlds
• Paramount Sonic’s universe (Debatable)

And, of course, there’s White Space. It’s a special case, given its nature as an interdimensional space that exists outside of time and space (given it lacks it), so when it comes to traditional cosmology wipes, White Space wouldn’t exactly be affected. However, affecting White Space itself is similar to affecting not only the realm but also the entire cosmology, given its bulk space nature, or even greater. Thus, Black Doom’s arguable feat can make White Space included in total universe count for scaling. The End of Time is in the same way a bit weird given it’s disconnected to White Space, but Solaris should cover it.

With that in mind, there should be around 15-18 universes finite wise for Sonic (which is Low Multiversal). You could nitpick some of these here and there – which is fair – but that’s the rough estimate. Of course, we can’t avoid the arguments for infinite multiversal as well; they’re also strong, and definitely possible. For more explanation of both finite and infinite ends of the Sonic cosmology, check out this cosmology blog made by ishi_yuki, who’s in this blog. Though to be clear, we are not pulling all arguments from this blog one to one due to current discussions and disagreements.

On the note of infinite multiversal, SEGA has recently posted a video in celebration of Sonic’s upcoming birthday in 2026, and it adds more fire to the fuel. Because it was posted right after the cosmology blog was done, we’ll shortly address it here. In this video, it is brought up that Sonic possesses infinite worlds. Not the strongest argument on its own, but it adds up a lot when you consider Sonic has a history with multiple implications of having such a big multiverse. Tails has suggested it, games like Shadow the Hedgehog have supported it, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds’ website also mentioned infinite worlds, and other secondary media like Sonic Speed Simulator has suggested it as well. For years it was pulled back because of how unclear they were suggested, but now, Multiversal+ is a real possibility for Sonic’s cosmology. Keep in mind that its status is still arguable, though, but its points are definitely stronger than ever before.

Weaknesses

Cell

Cell is lacking when it comes to traditional weaknesses. By both his own and the admission of genius fighters like Goku, he’s a perfect warrior that doesn’t really have any. That being said, his drive to fight strong fighters and see people stricken with fear can lead to rash mistakes and opportunities for his enemies. This isn’t really a factor when he’s just aiming to win outright though, given the sequence of events that followed his revival post self-destruction. On the note of that self-destruct though, Cell does have a temper that can spike and lead to reckless decisions if he’s backed into too far of a corner.

Metal Sonic

As great of a creation as he is, Metal Sonic isn’t without his errors. Especially against Batman here.  Despite that he’s considered to be Sonic’s equal throughout the series, Metal Sonic has never exactly surpassed him. It’s hard to count the number of times he’s had victory in his hands against the blue blur and then dropped the ball. He may be this powerful killing machine, but sometimes that attitude leads to downfall, costing him victories that could’ve been achieved. Aside from those failures, despite the fact that his forms such as Kai and Master Overlord make Metal Sonic stronger, they also have clear as day weak points that can be easily exploited.

Before the Verdict

Cell image made by WWAL, Metal Sonic images made by ishi_yuki.

Cell

Universal Cell: Is It Good?

As noted back in the Before We Start section, this blog is accounting for the Toei anime adaptation of Dragon Ball, which is notorious for adding plenty of things that never existed in the original source material as well as overall greatly expanding the scale of almost everything in the series to be far beyond the original manga. This is especially notable in regards to Cell, who goes from being very blatantly Solar System in the original manga, to now having a notable amount of statements in regards to the threat he poses to the entire Universe. While there is contention surrounding the idea, this segment will serve as a deep dive explanation into why the blog buys Cell having this level of strength.

Before fully diving into explaining why however, it should be clarified that nothing suggests Cell was going to destroy the entire Universe 7 Macrocosm, instead threatening only the Living World. For a very brief breakdown, Universes in Dragon Ball are composed of multiple space-times making up a Universal Macrocosm rather than the traditional singular space-time, those being the Living World (our Universe), the Afterlife (Heaven & Hell), and the Realm of the Kai’s which orbits around the Macrocosm, all of which added together can get numbers far higher than just baseline Universal. While there are feats in the Toei anime that threaten the entire macrocosm, none of them can be scaled to Cell, and Cell’s own feat has 0 evidence supporting it threatening anything except the Living World.

To start, it’s best to explain where the idea of such a level of power for Cell could come from. Upon absorbing Android 18 in the anime, we get an extended sequence of Cell’s transformation from Semi-Perfect into Perfect Form, most notably an anime-original sequence of the Namekian Elder Moori as well as Dende feeling utterly terrified after sensing Cell’s Ki, foreseeing that not just Earth, but the entire Universe could collapse. Even in non-Toei sources such as the manga, Android 16 directly states that Cell poses a threat to the entire Universe if he reaches his Perfect Form.

Obviously by themselves these statements can and should be taken as hyperbole, especially considering the fact that Toei wouldn’t be a stranger to the idea of insane hyperbole surrounding main villains. Luckily, there is more evidence to support this idea than just these two statements. During Cell’s fight with Gohan, Cell would be forced to unleash his complete strength after Gohan turned SSJ2, with the Toei anime having Piccolo say that “it’s like the whole Universe is shaking!” as a result of Cell unleashing his Ki.

After Cell’s self-destruct and return from the brink of death, another anime-original sequence plays out as Cell monologues to himself about how Gero created Cell not just to kill Goku, but to develop “ultimate strength” capable of “conquering the world—the entire universe.” Finally, as Cell is charging his Solar Kamehameha, the anime cuts to Elder Moori once more, who senses Cell’s Ki all the way from Earth, with Cell himself then stating after his iconic Solar System statement that he will “bring about the end of everything” before firing the Kamehameha.

But what is the takeaway from all of this? It could easily be argued that this could be anything ranging from Cell destroying things on a cosmic scale one at a time, whether it be a planet, star, or solar system, why does it have to mean that Cell is destroying the Universe in one attack with his Solar (System) Kamehameha? For starters, funnily enough, Cell’s iconic Solar System statement actually has some extra context to it that is largely and understandably ignored, that context being that he only says such a statement in the middle of charging his attack, with Cell even adding more strength to the Kamehameha throughout the beam clash in the anime.

Obviously on its own this would just mean Cell can maybe very vaguely upscale his statement of being able to destroy the Solar System, and even with most of the Toei statements, one can still very easily argue that Cell was going to destroy the Universe gradually rather than in one fell swoop. However, the anime exclusive scene with Elder Moori during the Solar Kamehameha sequence actually provides likely the best throughline for this level of power from both a narrative and VS Debating lens.

As stated previously, Moori sensed Cell’s Ki all the way from Earth, which is utterly ridiculous when one realizes that the original Namek was on nearly the opposite end of the Universe compared to Earth, with New Namek likely being even further to the point that the remnants of the Frieza Force were unable to find it after over a decade of searching. This by itself is obviously impressive, as it would mean Cell’s Ki can be felt from a distance that spans almost the entire Universe itself, but this scene also serves to pull on the narrative string that was set up earlier with Elder Moori’s vision. As also stated previously, Moori (and Dende) received a vision of not just Earth but possibly the entire Universe’s collapse upon Cell reaching his initial Perfect Form, it then stands to reason that the next time we see Moori in relation to Cell, it is thus related to his vision of the Universe’s collapse.

Considering that Cell also states immediately after he is going to “bring an end to everything”, on top of Gero designing Cell to have strength necessary to conquer the universe, on top of the fact that his Solar System statement was while he was still charging the attack, on top of the other miscellaneous statements brought up thus far, we feel that it is likely that the Toei anime intended for Cell, in his Super Perfect form, to be capable of destroying the Universe in one attack, thus making him Universal.

Metal Sonic

Where do Metal’s forms scale?

Metal Sonic has a lot of different transformations that he achieved in order to attempt to come out victorious through many of his fights. However, it is questioned if these specific forms are actually powerful enough to contend with the series’ best characters and transformations, including their feats, even with powerful gems and arsenal at his disposal. After all, he does get defeated quite oftenly, even by base form level characters, which lead to the doubt of Metal Sonic being as strong as he’s implied to be. In this section, we’ll quickly go over which forms of Metal Sonic could scale to the likes of “Super Sonic Tier” feats, and which forms do not.

Non-Super Tiers

(art credit)

• Metal Sonic Kai: Pretty self explanatory, actually. Despite looking like a menace, it is actually not that much of a power boost when it comes to the transformation itself. Metal Sonic achieved this transformation via a Dark Ring, which – despite being an increase to his power – is not enough to justify scaling him to the likes of a Super form. A Ring isn’t so strong, after all. Even with this in mind, there’s more, as Kai is defeated by at least two members of the Chaotix, shutting down any attempt of Kai being a “Super” tier.

• Metal Sonic’s “Power-Up” State from Sonic Mania Adventures: Our very first instance of Metal Sonic using the seven Chaos Emeralds in a state. Unfortunately, there’s not much to indicate this power-up is on the same levels of Super Sonic – even considering he’s using the Chaos Emeralds. Writer Ian Flynn specifically mentions that the form is a power-up and blatantly differentiates it from Super Neo Metal Sonic and Super Mecha Sonic. It’s arguable, but we lean towards it not being “Super” tier.

• Master Overlord: Finally, we have Master Overlord. Despite dragging about how it became Metal Sonic’s ultimate form, we believe it isn’t the case. First, we have to remember that Shadow depowered Super Neo Metal Sonic with a Chaos Spear, taking advantage of his specific weakness of Chaos energy sources nullifying each other. This completely takes Metal Sonic off guard, and thus makes him completely reposition his strategy, despite how he bragged about expecting this to happen (hell naw he didn’t). Sonic even drags on Master Overlord not being a Super state anymore, and while this could because he’s not glowing yellow and is now a giant dragon, considering how Metal had to reposition his strategy after Shadow caught him off guard, and how later he gets damaged easily by a lot of base form level characters (even if they were taking advantage of the fact Knuckles was targeting the Master Emerald to be removed), it probably doesn’t make Master Overlord on the same levels of a Super tier. Don’t get the wrong idea, he’s definitely way stronger than your average base form – just look at how many people were needed to take him out, but we believe he’s probably not there with what IDW has given.

Super Tiers

(artist credit)

• Super Neo Metal Sonic: I mean…it’s a super form. Case clos-Oh. It’s not that simple? Ok well, let’s be more specific then. For starters…well yes, it is a super form. That’s a pretty good start. There’s also the fact that Neo Metal has Sonic’s biodata, which is the main reason he can go super in the first place. We know this is the case because without Sonic’s biodata, he was incapable of going super with the emeralds in Mania Adventures. Heck, the main reason Tails wanted to keep Burning Blaze, who is equal to Super Sonic, away from Metal Sonic was because he speculated that he would’ve been able to copy her bio data and use the Sol Emeralds for himself. In order to turn into Super Sonic, Sonic taps into the “full” power of the Chaos Emeralds. If copying Blaze’s biodata would’ve led to Metal harnessing the power of the Sol Emeralds and being a problem for Burning Blaze, why wouldn’t the same thing apply to Sonic? Heck, he has Shadow’s biodata too, and Shadow is better at tapping into chaos energy than Sonic is. Last but not least, Sonic Speed Simulator shows us that Super Neo Metal Sonic can put up a fight against Super Sonic. While Roblox is not explicitly canon, Nibroc Sarkaria, who works on the game, has said that SEGA has to approve of the stories they create and will make them rewrite them if they do anything that conflicts with canon. This means that SEGA themselves had to approve of the idea of Super Neo Metal being a Super Sonic boss fight. And like…why wouldn’t they? It’s a super form.

• Metal Overlord: By far the most debatable out of all Metal Sonic forms. Where does Metal Sonic scale, after all? Well, we believe he should be powerful enough to be considered a “Super tier”, for several reasons. The first and most obvious one is the fact that in his debut game, Sonic Heroes, Metal Overlord fights Super Sonic, and Super-powered Tails and Knuckles. So, basically, three Super forms. Eggman, in fact, states to Sonic that regular attacks are completely useless against Metal Overlord, and that he needed to do Team Blasts with Tails and Knuckles to actually damage Metal Overlord. Should be simple, right? Well, we’re not quite done. There’s a common argument in the community that Super forms vary in power, thus Metal Overlord would be facing Super Sonic in a time where his power was not where it is notable. This notion, however, is likely not good. After all, Classic Sonic was introduced, and both Super Classic Sonic and Super Modern Sonic were doing equally good against Eggman’s Time Eater. Since Classic Sonic comes directly from the past, it would not make sense for an Adventure era Super Sonic to not be a bit better than Classic Sonic.
  
  It’s also fair to say that the writers don’t think this is the case. Not only is it never stated super forms vary in power, but when Ian Flynn was asked whether or not Super Sonic fluctuates in power, he said no. Given that Super Sonic specifically draws out the full power of the Emeralds, it wouldn’t make sense for Super Sonic to constantly be in flux and would make Super Sonic an unreliable trump card in the series. You’d think if that were the case, this would be brought up in a game like Sonic Frontiers, where Sonic goes Super a whopping 5 times. This is not saying Sonic doesn’t get stronger. We know he does. Nothing in the series contradicts the idea that Modern is so busted that Classic downscaling is an outlier. The last thing we have to address is Sonic X Shadow Generations, where Shadow faces and beats Metal Overlord in a fight, which should shut down arguments, right? Nah. Shadow had his power amplified by Black Doom to an unknown degree by the time the boss fight happened. But what about Mephiles, don’t you have to fight him after Metal Overlord? Yes, but Shadow also easily no diffs Mephiles. Additionally, it would probably come down as an outlier anyways, as it contradicts a lot of things previously. It’s not hard to believe they just wanted a fun boss fight character. Ultimately, we believe Metal Overlord has strong enough evidence to be on the same level as a Super tier.

Fanart

(By jane_trademark)

(By 2KartZ)

(By Sunmellows)

(By Electrik)

Verdict

Stats

Let’s start with Cell. At this point in time, Dragon Ball Z has several feats that reach the large planet to solar system ranges of power. With the anime, he would be massively stronger than the likes of Garlic Jr. and Frieza, who can pull off feats well within the ExaFOE ranges of power. As Super Perfect Cell, he is powerful enough to not only blow away the entire solar system, but the universe as well. In terms of speed, we can scale Cell to Goku dodging meteors at trillions of times light speed and base Goku flying across the afterlife at 15 – 200 quadrillions of times the speed of light. Applying multipliers and up scaling to the latter, it can reach 3, 10 or possibly even more into quintillions of times light speed.

As Super Neo Metal Sonic and Metal Overlord, Metal Sonic scales to essentially every feat in the Sonic series that’s relevant, thanks to scaling to Super Sonic. There are plenty of villains Sonic has defeated that are more than capable of destroying planets and stars, like Dark Gaia and The End. Super Sonic himself directly blocks The End’s planet to star busting laser, and lesser machines like the Final Egg Blaster are capable of destroying a group of stars in a single shot. Of course, we can’t forget about Solaris and Time Eater, two creatures that were powerful enough to destroy entire universes. Solaris in particular would’ve consumed all existing timelines had he not been stopped and absorbed multiple dimensions into his body by the time Sonic fought him. In terms of speed, we can scale Metal Sonic to Solaris destroying and absorbing entire universes at trillions to quadrillions of times the speed of light – and the Paradox Prism alongside Black Doom spreading his influence over White Space make feats worth of roughly 1.5 quintillion times the speed of light.

With all of this established, we can conclude that Super Neo Metal Sonic and Metal Overlord are likely the stronger of the two while Super Perfect Cell is faster with finite ends. You would think it’d be the other way around. Strange, isn’t it?

Cell might be powerful enough to shake and destroy an entire universe, but Solaris could destroy multiple of them. The Sonic multiverse consists of at least 15 – 18 universes, and Solaris had absorbed multiple universes by the time Sonic, Shadow, and Silver fought Solaris—and that’s not even mentioning how Solaris could’ve wiped out potentially infinite universes. An incomplete Time Eater, who destroyed an entire universe similar to Cell, was also halted by the power of a single Chaos Emerald. Super Sonic, who Metal scales to, utilizes the “full” power of all 7 emeralds. Because of this, we believe there’s more evidence to suggest that Metal is the stronger of the two.

For speed, on paper, again, you’d think Metal Sonic would have the advantage. He has scaling to feats around 100 or so quadrillion times the speed of light such as with Solaris and Time Eater’s cosmic shenanigans, which beats the bare minimum 15,4 quadrillion C end of Goku flying through Otherworld. If you want to use the 210.6 quadrillion C high end for Cell, Metal has scaling to calculations that at their best can reach quintillions, considering the Paradox Prism and Black Doom having 1.46 Quintillion C calculations, and Time Eater’s feat being an arguable cosmology wipe that’d get over 6 quintillion C. And of course, using the more reasonable 77.2 Quadrillion C middle end for the Otherworld flight isn’t good enough either.

However, there are two important things to remember with Goku’s flight feat: that he did it in his base form, and that he did it before getting stronger to fight in the Otherworld Tournament. This means the iconic Super Saiyan multiplier can be applied to the feat given Cell by the point of his death being far above Goku’s golden form. Everyone knows about that massive fifty times boost, and applying it flips the script. The safer 15.4 quadrillion C bare minimum now becomes 770 quadrillion times the speed of light, blitzing past Metal Sonic’s quadrillions C arguments. The higher end 210.6 quadrillion C calculation becomes 10.53 quintillion, being a good chunk faster than Metal’s best calculations even if not blitzing the highest Time Eater calculation.

So now, Cell is blitzing with lower ends for both, and is a good bit faster with higher ends… and then you remember that Cell was far, far faster than Super Saiyan Goku at the end of the Cell Saga, even before his self destruction Zenkai Boost. Essentially, whether you want to be conservative or go for high ends, Cell should always be faster than the steel blur. Of course, infinite speed arguments do exist for a Super Sonic level character like Metal. However, those ends are very debatable, and Cell solidly takes finite speed comparisons, so giving him the advantage here is the safer way to go about things.

He’s quite confident in his speed you know?

Arsenal & Abilities

By far the most interesting part of this debate is how their abilities clash. After all, both Cell and Metal Sonic have numerous techniques to pull from, so, in the end, who can overcome the other’s versatility? Obviously you won’t see Metal Sonic using much of his item boxes or Wisps here, despite how useful they seem like, so most of his items are rather something that doesn’t need to be discussed much, and, even if he did, a lot of them don’t impact the debate much.

Let’s remember from the stats section that Cell has a speed advantage over Metal Sonic – either a slight one or a notable one depending on interpretations for finite Sonic speed. While Metal’s durability is certainly enough to tank a lot of Cell’s hits, there’s some things that make it even more favorable for him. First, Super Neo Metal Sonic, thanks to being a Super form, has complete invulnerability to physical damage. This isn’t to say he can tank literally any damage ever, but Cell is much weaker than Metal Sonic, so whatever he dishes out on the robotic duplicate of the blue blur will likely not scratch him thanks to the power of either the Chaos Emeralds or the Master Emerald.

Though, if Cell is faster, can Metal Sonic hit him consistently? Well, this is where the second thing comes in: Chaos Control; a very powerful time stopping ability at Metal’s disposal. With that, Cell’s mobility and speed advantage would be completely negated, and Metal Sonic is free to do whatever he feels like. Should be easy, right? Metal just wins now… is what we would say if there wasn’t an extra factor that makes this debate a bit more noteworthy to talk about.

Cell…  is just really hard to kill. Extremely so. Thanks to the Namekian physiology, Cell’s regeneration makes him really hard to put down through any conventional means. He can regenerate body parts, his entire upper body after it got destroyed, and even after that bastard got kicked back to his weaker 2nd form, and unleashed a self-destruct explosion so powerful it could kill all of the Z-Fighters and planet Earth itself, he still came back. If Cell just has a microscopic core around, he will regenerate completely. What makes this even more problematic is that thanks to his Saiyan genes, every time Cell regenerates from a near death state, he will get a significant boost to his stats thanks to Zenkai. If Metal doesn’t pack enough firepower, or doesn’t pay attention to this, Cell’s Zenkai boosts would keep making Cell even faster, and potentially even stronger than Metal Sonic’s strongest forms. What can Metal do about it?

Well, Metal Sonic has a few ways to deal with this alone. Super Neo Metal Sonic can create various types of energy blasts to instantly vaporize Cell, and multiple abilities can halt Cell so he doesn’t use the speed advantage to dodge, though, it’s mostly Chaos Control. While Silver’s psychokinesis is obviously not gonna crush Cell to a cellular level and completely kill him, it could still be useful to reduce him and easily kill him with a powerful enough blast. It should be noted that Cell does also know how to perform telekinesis with Ki, but, due to the power advantage, Metal’s should always be stronger. Chaos Blast is also a very powerful attack, but we think it’s unreliable to say it would kill all cells of Cell – and even then, Metal doesn’t use this technique much. Metal Sonic, fortunately, doesn’t have to rely on his abilities alone for this, as his signature trait would turn out to be his most powerful way to achieve victory. That’s right, copying bio-data.

It’s surprisingly overpowered here, given how Metal Sonic could simply scan or take a good punch from Cell to get his hands on the bio-data he needs. Heck, thanks to his invulnerability in Super Neo Metal Sonic or his greater durability in Metal Overlord, taking direct damage from Cell is the perfect (heh) opportunity to copy his bio-data at any chance, especially when you consider Cell’s speed advantage. When Metal Sonic successfully copies the bio-android, Cell suddenly stops looking so Perfect. The blue blur’s doppelgänger would get the data of everything Cell can do, which would let him know, for example, how to deal with Cell in every way. Ki techniques like the many energy attacks, Multiform technique to create clones for extra coverage, barriers, and even power-up to become stronger like Cell can do with Ki? Now Metal can do all of those too. But you might be wondering: can he really copy Ki? Isn’t copying life force energy that comes from the soul too weird for a robot like Metal Sonic?

No, actually. He’s copied other biological life energies he doesn’t have with no issues. For example, Metal does not naturally possess chaos energy and does not hold Chaos Emeralds in Sonic Heroes, but despite that, he was able to use Shadow’s Chaos Control just fine. Remember, Shadow can only use Chaos Control because of Black Doom’s DNA. Stopping time specifically requires an Emerald, but Metal could do it just by copying his data. Multiple sources state that chaos energy is essentially a form of life energy; it is said that the Chaos Emeralds provide energy to all living things, pretty similar to Ki; Gerald even said that they bind souls and, well, chaos energy gives life to many things in the series. Because of that, we think there’s little reason to believe Metal couldn’t copy Ki. Even if he couldn’t, it’s not like Ki techniques can’t be mimicked by others that lack it. For example, characters like Android 18 can create Destructo Discs despite having no Ki. At worst, even if Metal couldn’t copy Ki directly, he could replicate Cell’s techniques with Chaos Energy.

So, not only can Metal Sonic and his greatest forms like Super Neo and Metal Overlord use Ki techniques like the Kamehameha, Supernova, Multiform, the capability of making himself stronger and faster with Ki and many others, etc, Metal Sonic can also copy Cell’s physiology. He very explicitly could copy Chaos’ bio-data which is a vastly different type of physiology, so nothing that Cell can escape here. With that, Metal Sonic not only gains the capability to, uh, spawn Metal Sonic juniors to counter Cell’s own seven children…? But also gains access to Cell’s entire argument for a possible win: regeneration and Zenkai Boosts. Any possibility of Cell snowballing with them is now available in Metal Sonic’s versatility. Super Neo Metal Sonic specifically probably wouldn’t get to use this in his advantage thanks to being invulnerable to damage, meaning he wouldn’t be damaged or in a near death state. Metal Overlord on the other hand very easily would.

You can see where this goes, right? Even assuming Cell can play the perfect game to win and use literally everything he can to snowball Metal for a win, it just wouldn’t be effective against his opponent that can do all of it in a much better way. Metal just has too much of an advantage on that alone for Cell to capitalize on it, especially when you consider the only real way he can damage Metal is by waiting for lots of near death experiences to get Zenkai boosts and pray Metal wouldn’t just kill him with any of his attacks or copied Ki attacks. Overall, Metal’s sheer versatility, abilities, and extremely OP power copying is just too perfect for Cell to deal with, making him crush this category. Whatever he’s made of is just too out of Cell’s league.

Tertiary Factors

Tertiary factors for this match are… complicated to discuss, so let’s start out with the obvious usual suspects to talk about: Skill and experience!

In terms of skill, Metal Sonic is certainly no slouch – being able to keep with Sonic is a pretty big deal, considering the fact Sonic is proficient in several martial arts and has a lot of experience overall. In addition, he’s also proficient in figuring out how to use his copied abilities to suit his own ends, as we see with his usage of Chaos Control and his ability to weaponize Copycat for himself in Rivals. He’s definitely impressive… but he’s fighting a Dragon Ball character. Cell’s fighting style has been described as quite literally perfect by Goku, and he went even with him in a fight, as well as capitalizing on the weaknesses – both emotional and literal – of his opponents as fighters. In addition, while Metal is good at weaponizing his copying, Cell can straight up copy techniques by looking at them without even having it as an ability to begin with.  So, clear-cut, right? Cell takes skill! Well, yes… but also, no.

Metal Sonic has the ability to copy people’s biodata, but this is not limited to just abilities. By copying Eggman’s bio-data, he gained his 300 IQ as well as his own personality tics and mistakes as a strategist – as such, by copying Cell’s biodata, he would gain all of his skill as a fighter. So, skill ends up evening out in the end anyways, because Metal would have Cell’s skill.

In terms of experience, Metal obviously takes this on paper – he’s simply been around much longer and fought Sonic many more times then Cell fought.. well, anyone across the length of the Cell Saga. However, like Cell’s seeming skill advantage, this falls apart in terms of being an actual relevant advantage. Sure, Metal may have more experience on paper, but none of that experience actually is relevant to this fight. He’s never fought someone who’s faster than him to the degree Cell is, nor has he fought anyone with the potent regeneration Cell has – so, while he has more experience, none of his experience is actually able to help him fight Cell, so it’s pretty much a moot factor, making tertiaries still a tie.

And this extends to most tertiary factors in this fight – things like range and AoE end up being cancelled out by power copying, and no real advantage either has beyond stats or abilities end up being anything super meaningful to either, so tertiary factors effectively cancel out entirely, rendering this a draw.

Conclusion

“I will kill every single human being on this planet. I’ll come methodically after every last one of you, and I’ll watch your faces twist with fear.”

Advantages:

• Faster than Metal in any of the finite ends
• Would start out much more skilled then Metal…
• Regeneration and Zenkai Boosts could potentially make him outlast and surpass Metal…
• DevilArtemis and Takahata101
• Best DBZ villain
  • Blog members argued about this for hours

Disadvantages:

• Way weaker in any end
• Infinitely slower against Metal’s infinite ends
• …but Metal’s copying renders this moot
• …but Metal’s copying would let him do the same
• The remix is more popular than the actual theme, to the point we linked the remix in the quote instead!

“See me as I am, no longer afraid of ANYTHING! I shall become the ultimate overlord, ruling as the world’s most supreme being!”

Advantages:

• Is way stronger in his strongest forms in any ends
• Infinitely faster on infinite ends
• Super Neo Metal is invulnerable to any physical damage of Cell’s
• Chaos Control’s time stop helps Metal to land any necessary hit
• Has ways of killing Cell, with or without copied techniques
• Bio-Data Copying in general, letting him have any of Cell’s abilities and advantages benefitting him much more
• Is pretty
• Somehow the second four time Death Battle combatant

Disadvantages:

• Is slower in any of the finite ends
• Cell’s regeneration and Zenkai boosts are something Metal has to keep track of before it’s too late
• Zero and Batman victim

There is a lot going on in this match with how many powers the two have, but it shouldn’t be too complicated at first glance. Metal Sonic is going to start far stronger, and has far more powers than the bio-android when you add Cell’s list of moves to his own. Where things get complicated is Cell’s absurd survivability letting him survive attacks from Metal despite the power gap. Sure, Metal Sonic having multiple options for attacking down to the cellular level means he can kill Cell, but then you recall how Cell’s survivability lets him come back from attacks way above his current league, and thus Metal’s kill shots aren’t guaranteed. Combine this with Cell’s speed advantage, and while Metal Sonic can kill him on the first big go, more often than not Cell is going to come back with a Zenkai that makes him far more of a problem for the badnik.

So, Cell just gets to snowball and will eventually overpower Metal Sonic right? Unfortunately, most likely not. Due to Metal Sonic’s power copying, he in turn will also have Cell’s survivability and Zenkai boosts in his arsenal. Therefore, Metal Sonic will also have Cell’s snowball potential. So assuming Metal doesn’t get lucky and kill Cell on the first go, the comparison turns into a sort of gambling snowball game where the two will keep escalating until one gets lucky and kills the other. To figure out who has the advantage here, we have to compare unique advantages.

For starters, as mentioned before, tertiaries are even due to how thorough Metal’s copying is, so they’re basically a non-factor here. What is a big factor are their starting stats. Metal is going to start far stronger, and Cell is going to start far faster. Inherently, strength is going to matter more here, considering a good amount of it is what’s going to be needed for either to even kill each other due to the regeneration factor, so point to Metal. But while Cell is going to be far faster, Metal’s Chaos Control time stop serves as a sort of bandaid to that problem that’ll ensure he can land good hits in spite of it. While in contrast, Cell doesn’t have some sort of special ability that circumvents the power disadvantage.

Cell is certainly capable, terrifyingly powerful while being the most unkillable a cockroach has ever managed to be. But putting it simply, once both share the same pieces on the board, Metal’s unique advantage is something Cell doesn’t have a good answer for, while Cell’s unique advantage isn’t too big of a problem in the grand scheme of things. The bio-android may have been perfect, but the badnik was simply a Perfect-er Cell.

The winner is Metal Sonic.

Final Tally

Cell (0) – Not very perfect of him (get hue hue hued)

Metal Sonic (12) – Andrex, Blue Igneous, Brobuscus, door-kun, Electrik, ishi_yuki, Makotofanboy, Riley, Strunton, The Cardinal King, The Mad Gadfly, WWAL

(Animation by Electrik)