Why was Cell afraid of the Final Flash?

[Professor Freeza]

He was near SSj2 level in Full power. He also tanked the Final Flash. So why was he scared?

[KBABZ]

Clearly explained moments after: he's hamming it up just to mess with Vegeta. He calls him a fool for forgetting that he has Piccolo's ability to regenerate lost parts of his body.

That and it would probably have hurt regardless of the fact that he could grow them back later.

[mcdjbeatz]

Cell was arrogant and suppressed his power to a level lower than the level of that he used at the cell games but enough to knock Vegeta around with ease. As a result Vegeta was able to unleash an attack which posed a threat to Cell which visibly shocked him. The fact that the final flash hit the right corner of Cell's torso rather than the centre seems to indicate that Cell realised too late how powerful the attack was and attempted to avoid it, it's unlikely that Vegeta simply missed considering he had enough control to narrow the blast.

[Polyphase Avatron]

If it had hit his core he might have died.

[ankokudaishogun]

Full Charged Final Flash was simply stronger than Cell's ability to tank it.

Think of it as concentrating the power of Grade-3 in a single blast: Cell just underestimated how much power Vegeta really could use in a single strike.

[KBABZ]

If it had hit his core he might have died.

Given how he explains it later in the Cell Games, I doubt Cell had any idea his biology worked like that. I suspect it was a natural instinct of "Oh no that could vaporize all of me!", and is why he had the same reaction when Goku used the Warp Kamehameha on him.

[Cetra]

If it had hit his core he might have died.

Given how he explains it later in the Cell Games, I doubt Cell had any idea his biology worked like that. I suspect it was a natural instinct of "Oh no that could vaporize all of me!", and is why he had the same reaction when Goku used the Warp Kamehameha on him.

To be fair, it did kill him. He only survived through the power of plothole.

[Cipher]

He was hamming it up for Vegeta afterward, but I do think the brief moment of fear he has before it hits is genuine. It took out the whole right side of his body. His regenerative powers are a major attribute, but it's not as though he can't be killed.

[ekrolo2]

Probably because Toriyama didn't initially make the gap between him and Vegeta as ridiculously big as it later is. Cell even says Trunks is stronger than him in Grade 3 later.

[PFM18]

If it had hit his core he might have died.

that "core" crap isnt consistent so I dont think we can really point to that. I think it was either just him knowing that he could have regenerated the damage and so he was playing it up to mess with Vegeta, or he wasnt intended to be as strong as he eventually ended up being in the Cell Games so it was actually a threat to him.

[zarmack]

He underestimated the power of the attack and realized it could have killed him if he didn't block it at the last second.