Chapter Text
What a match, huh? This one is actually pretty easy to justify, I've broken it into four categories:
Strength
Speed
Skill
Abilities
First up is Strength, and at a baseline this is pretty obvious: Metal scales to Sonic beating Emerl, who absorbed the power of the final egg blaster, capable of outputting a blast worth 3.79×10^34 tons of TNT. That's impressive, but Cell at a baseline can destroy the solar system, which we've established is a nebula in Dragon Ball Z, the energy required to destroy that is worth about 1.45×10^49 tons of TNT; roughly 380 TRILLION times stronger.
That's only at a baseline, though; the script is flipped when you consider their high ends. Cell could destroy the universe, which is infinite in size, but Super Neo Metal Sonic, through scaling to the chaos emeralds, scales to Solaris, which could destroy Sonic's whole multiverse, which contains an infinite number of universes. Being able to destroy one universe is impressive, but that's nothing compared to matchup beings who could destroy an infinite number of 'em!
(Even if you assume that being able to destroy the universe means Cell could destroy all of universe 7, including Otherworld, he would still only get to 3x Universal, 300x Universal with super perfect cell, still infinitely weaker than Metal Sonic.)
Strength goes to Metal Sonic.
Next is Speed, which is a bit simpler. Cell was capable of destroying an infinite sized universe in finite time, giving him infinite speed. Metal Sonic, however, scales to Sonic's speed literally restoring time and escaping a whole never-ending cyber prison that neither Amy, Tails, Knuckles or Eggman could escape without assistance. Only Sonic could, because he's just that fast. This would imply immeasurable speeds; which is a whole tier above infinite speeds.
Speed goes to Metal Sonic.
Skill is a no brainer: Metal isn't a slouch in terms of combat, but he's been off the field more times than he's been on. Cell, on the other hand, was literally made with the DNA of the greatest fighters in the universe. He is the literal amalgamation of all the Z fighter's best qualities and it shows in how he never really loses a fight - hell, he fought so well against Goku, a man who trains literal years worth in a day and learns things from just observing them - so well that he literally gave up because Goku knew he wouldn't be able to win. His first loss was his only loss, while Metal Sonic doesn't really win, like, ever.
Skill goes to Cell.
Abilities is a bit more contentious. Cell's abilities are far more suited for a combat situation; infallible regeneration from a single atom, cloning, all the Z fighters' abilities… he's a swiss army knife of powers, a greatest hits collection of all the characters that preceded him with his own bells and whistles. There's just one thing; Metal Sonic's biodata copying ability would allow for Metal to take everything Cell has going for him and make it his own after just observing him for a few minutes. And he could do that, since we know he can copy data off of robots, not just organic lifeforms. Not to mention, Metal Sonic has chaos control, an ability Cell has absolutely no shown counter to since, well, Cell never fought anyone who could stop time.
Abilities would be a tie, but Metal takes the edge through having chaos control.
3-1 in Metal Sonic's favour. Yikes…
Here's a comprehensive overview:
Metal Sonic
+ Incalculably faster
+ Infinitely stronger in his super form
+ Can stop time
= Copying biodata forces a stalemate
- Far weaker initially
- Less skilled
Cell:
+ Far stronger initially
+ More skilled
+ Near infallible regeneration and more combat suited abilities...
= ... But metal would be able to copy them as well as everything else Cell can do
- Has no way to counter stopped time
- Super Neo is infinitely stronger
- Incalculably slower
Despite how seemingly balanced this overview looks, make no mistake; as much as I wish I could say otherwise, this was not a close fight. Sadly, Cell has no legitimate win condition here. It's fairly balanced against base, Neo, and Overlord, but the second Metal goes super… there's nothing he can do.
Cell showed Metal what he's made of, only to become a black mark on the floor.
The winner is Metal Sonic.
Next time on DEATH BATTLE:
The normal gym leader and elite four member just trying to pay the bills vs the overworked salaryman cursed with a life of sorcery!
Larry vs Kento Nanami (Pokémon Scarlet and Violet vs Jujutsu Kaisen)
Next time (for real)
The limitless vs... the flower?
Satoru Gojo vs Flowery (Jujutsu Kaisen vs Deltarune)