After Freeza's death, Piccolo trains with Goku and Gohan for three years to prepare for a battle against two powerful Androids created by the Red Ribbon Army's Dr. Gero to kill Goku. Piccolo tries to intervene during Goku's battle with Android 19, but is shot down by Dr. Gero, revealed to have faked being injured to lower the guard of the Androids. Though he manages to best Dr. Gero in battle, he is unable to prevent him from activating the other Androids. After being defeated by Android 17 and Android 18, Piccolo seeks to unite with Kami, and gain another massive increase in power. After uniting with Kami, Piccolo becomes aware of a more dangerous threat named Cell, who volunteers information on himself when believing he has bested Piccolo (oblivious to Piccolo's regenerative abilities) when in reality the latter was pretending to be defeated in order to find out Cell's origin. Before his second encounter with Cell, Piccolo once again battles the Androids, except this time he battles #17 one on one. After a somewhat even match, Cell arrives on the battle scene; Cell needs to absorb the Androids to complete his power. While trying to prevent this, Piccolo is nearly killed by Cell, surviving the encounter thanks to his regenerative abilities and following some training in the Room of Spirit and Time, he is forced to participate in a tournament created by Cell called the Cell Games, where he fights one of the seven Cell Juniors that are created by Cell, who are later destroyed by Gohan. Piccolo laments that he cannot assist Gohan in his battle against Cell due to his lack of power, lauding Vegeta for helping Gohan after Cell's death and making the lookout his permanent residence.