Reprogrammed

Roshi's Last Stand

Now Trunks understood why his mother hadn't left Roshi's. The ocean level had risen and was floating around as if there were no gravity. Those strange jellybean-like objects floated around the island in and above the water. One of them had smashed Bulma's airship, leaving her stranded on the small island.

"Mom!" Trunks cried, coming in for a landing.

The door burst open and Bulma came rushing out. "Trunks!" She ran to her son and embraced him. "Thank goodness you're all right. What the heck is going on?" She eyed the frozen android in his arms. "And what happened to 18?"

"It's a long story, Mom." Trunks told her, setting 18 down. "Come on, I'm taking you to the Lookout; you'll be safe there."

"Hey," cried Oolong, "what about us?"

Trunks turned to the pig. "Of course, all of you. But we need to hurry. There's a powerful monster out there that's destroying everything. He's the one causing all of this."

Roshi stepped forward. "Is he that terrible power I feel?"

Trunks nodded. "Yeah. Right now he's fighting someone else, but I don't know how much longer the battle will last."

Roshi looked worried. "What a mess. I can sense enormous power levels all over the place. Even those long since dead like Frieza. I can sense him. Broly too. They're out there."

"Never mind them!" Trunks snapped. "If we can beat the one who caused this, everything will return to normal. But first I want to make sure you guys…"

He trailed off as an enormous surge of power overwhelmed him. Looking terrified, he turned in the direction of the massive energy. Something had happened, something bad. One of the two, he wasn't sure if it was Buu or Janemba, but one of them just had a massive power increase.

A bead of sweat ran down Roshi's cheek. "Oh boy… Do you feel that?"

Terrified to the point where he was blue in the face, Trunk slowly nodded. "It's… unreal… What happened?"

"I don't know, but we're about to find out."

He was right. The massive power was heading right for them. Trunks figured that whoever it was, they were looking for him. Either Janemba to finish what they started, or Buu to pick up where Janemba and him left off.

Bulma gently touched Trunks' arm. "What's going on?"

Trunks turned to her fearfully. "No time! We have to leave before-"

Whoosh! The wind whipped around them at the arrival of whoever was coming. Almost afraid to look, Trunks turned to see who had won the match, Janemba or Buu.

But it wasn't Janemba or Buu who was floating in the air. Instead, it was what seemed to be a hybrid of the two. This new creature was as tall as Janemba, but clearly wasn't him. His lower half seemed to be that of Buu, though there was no telling what was beneath those pants. His upper body was basically that of Janemba, but the red-orange color of him had turned pink, and he now had the holes on his body that Buu had, and his hands were pudgy like Buu's too. What should have been the whites of his eyes were still yellow, but his blue eye color had turned red like Buu's, and his ears weren't as long. At first, Trunks thought that Janemba's tail was now growing out of the back of his head, but he now noticed that it was Buu's head-tentacle, only much bigger and longer, nearly reaching his feet, and was the original red-orange color of Janemba. And on his forehead was the letter M as if it had been stamped there.

Though it was clear that one had absorbed the other, it was impossible to tell who had absorbed whom. The lack of a halo over his head made Trunks think that it was possibly Janemba, but then again, if Buu had been the one to absorb Janemba, the he could have be using the demon's life force, restoring his own life.