No Way Jose

Note: Originally from a Google Doc written in November-December 2019
No Way Jose
by Monsoonjr99 a.k.a. Mona Spoon
== Chapter 1: A Warm Day in Milton ==
So once upon a time in some little town without any hamsters, there was this guy named Jose. On the 9th of September he checked in to room 155 at the Floyd Cookie Hotel and crashed onto the bed. In the morning he woke up to a swarm of spiders crawling all over the room.
“Dumb spiders!” he exclaimed before grabbing a hammer the hotel staff placed on the bedside table for an unknown reason. Jose then proceeded to smash the arachnids and put a myriad of holes in the room’s walls.
“What’s going on in here?” asked Mason, a staff member, at the door. When Jose opened the door, Mason placed out his hand and sighed, “hammer please.”
Mason then continued smashing the spiders as Jose checked out of the hotel.
The morning was very bright and sunny in the town, in fact so sunny the people weren’t outside at the local shops like usual. The mercury climbed through the morning and Jose felt something just wasn’t right. As he strolled down the street towards the town hall, he smelled something odd. Was it smoke? Then the sunshine suddenly went dark. A massive storm cloud had just obscured the sun. The temperature increased further and Jose was sweating profusely as he dashed towards the town hall building.
The cloud then started to drop its terrible payload. Fireballs started bombarding the town. Jose got himself into the stone building just as a flaming object struck where he was seconds before. Mayor Apple slammed his fist onto a big red button which sent metal shutters cascading down over the town hall windows.
“Oh Jose! Just like the last time you showed up in town!” the mayor cried as the building got shaken by exploding orbs.
“I’m just doing business like I always do. I can’t explain what is making this happen,” Jose pouted.
Throughout the town, people scrambled into the bunkers as fireballs slammed into the town’s many flammable structures. Back at the Floyd Cookie Hotel, Mason descended a staircase into the moldy cellar. He placed his hammer onto a tool rack and sat on a metal bench. The air was filled with the noise of the building above crackling and falling apart. One spider managed to make it down into the cellar, so Mason then stood up, grabbed his hammer back off the tool rack, and proceeded to smash it.
At the town hall, the air conditioning was running at maximum power, but the air inside still got hotter as the town around broiled and burned. A loud boom then shook the building almost like an earthquake. Thunder echoed through the town as bolts of lightning emerged from the cloud. The barrage of fireballs suddenly halted, but now whatever wasn’t already burning was getting zapped with the fury of Zeus.
After 5 solid minutes of lightning and thunder, silence then covered the town. Through a periscope Mayor Apple scanned around. Most buildings were either on fire or already burnt to the ground. The cloud still roiled above angrily. Just a minute after the eerie silence began, a whistle of wind could be heard. It steadily grew louder into a roar.
“Just like last time,” Jose remarked. The mayor swiveled the periscope around until he saw the approaching menace.
“Get into the cellar,” Mayor Apple whispered as he put away the periscope.
The twisting and swirling beast was making a beeline towards the town hall. Flames twirled around the core of the monster.
Down in the town’s bunkers, people’s eyes were glued to screens. Weatherman Nekaro tried his best to stay calm as he reported on the day’s anomaly.
“Do not leave your bunkers!” the weatherman warned, “This is a particularly dangerous situation. The fire tornado’s trajectory looks to be straight through the center of the town.”
The wind started to rip apart town hall. The stone walls and metal shutters did well to keep the building standing amidst a firestorm, but as the flaming twister blasted it like a blowtorch, it began to disintegrate. The violent winds did not take long to shred the building to dust. Jose, Mayor Apple, and the mayor’s staffers sat in silence down in the cellar through the fury above.
The monster marched through town sweeping away the charred debris from moments earlier. As the twister finished its jaunt through the remains of the town, it quickly lifted and the storm cloud above dissipated. The searing sun kept shining upon the toasted settlement just like earlier that morning.
Mason opened the hatch of the former hotel’s cellar, letting a surge of one-hundred-plus degree heat flow past him. Cockroaches skittered across the charred ground where the Floyd Cookie Hotel once stood.
“So it has happened again,” Mason remarked before smashing several cockroaches under his hammer.
The town slowly emerged from the bunkers, surveying the destruction.
“At least the town hall still stood the first time this happened,” Mayor Apple quipped.
“I’m going to spend the next 5 months somewhere colder than here,” Weatherman Nekaro panted before picking up his phone and booking a flight to Snowville.
With Milton burnt to the ground, most of its residents had to evacuate to nearby Thomas City. Mason later that same day stayed at ground zero to begin rebuilding, even in the midst of a scorching hot day and without much material to work with.
== Chapter 2: Mason's Lunacy ==
The next day, Jose walked into a seafood restaurant in Thomas City and ordered some calamari for breakfast.
“We’re all sold out of squid, which makes this a very sad day,” remarked the cashier.
“Sike!” shouted the manager, Thomas, at the cashier before placing a large bowl of squid on the prep counter. The chef proceeded to prepare the calamari Jose had ordered.
“I fished all that squid myself,” exclaimed Thomas, “right out of Cooper’s pool.”
Later, while Jose was eating his cephalopod breakfast, the Thomas City loudspeakers blared an announcement, “Lunar replacement cycle scheduled for 10 PM tonight. Do not miss it!”
“Oh they’re replacing the moon again,” Thomas laughed, “why should I care to stay up late for that when I can instead stay up late for squid fishing!”
Jose had not bothered watching moon replacements before, but thought why not tonight.
“Come to Humberto Park to watch the lunar replacement cycle from the hillside,” the loudspeakers boomed, “One spot costs only 3 shekels!”
Back in the remains of Milton, Mason was rummaging through boxes down in the cellar of the former Floyd Cookie Hotel.
“There it is!” Mason exclaimed when he found his trombone case.
He lifted the case onto its side, then gave the latch a good whack from his hammer. The case popped open revealing the musical instrument inside. Mason carefully removed the trombone from its case, grabbed a microfiber cloth from one of the other boxes, and began cleaning off the instrument. After about five minutes of swabbing out the bell and valves, Mason placed the mouthpiece onto the instrument and smiled.
“Ready for work,” Mason remarked.
“C-O-O-K-I-E-S,” a robot beeped nearby, “my hotel is gone!”
“It will be rebuilt, good as new, Floyd,” Mason assured.
That evening, citizens of Thomas City gathered on the hillside in Humberto Park. The moon could be seen rising on the horizon.
“Welcome everyone to Humberto Park on this lovely clear night!” Mayor Harvey announced, “We are more packed than usual after what happened in Milton yesterday, but I hope everyone is comfortable and enjoys watching the lunar replacement cycle!”
“The namesake of this city isn’t even here right now,” someone sitting next to Jose laughed, “he’s probably fishing squid out of my pool again.”
A bird sitting on Cooper's head then suddenly flew off into the distance.
“Ha, she flies away every time there’s a lunar replacement cycle,” he remarked.
The crowd on the hill patiently waited as the moon rose above the horizon. The satellite was a dull yellow-brown on this night, and not just from being low in the sky. It seemed to flicker and dim several times as they watched.
Mason stood on top of a mound of charred debris watching the same moon rise. He stared at what looked like a potato in the sky. He waited for the moment to come. He did not need a watch. A breeze picked up around Mason, blowing ash past his face. Even in the dark, he was then able to spot a bird soaring in the distance slowly towards him. The bird landed on Mason’s shoulder a few moments later. With his trombone in one hand, he plucked a feather from the creature with his other, then proceeded to stick it in the bell of the instrument. He lifted the trombone into the air and pointed it towards the moon. Mason took a deep breath. It was time.
A clock chimed in Humberto Park. Everyone shushed their chatter and turned their eyes at the moon. Mason slid the trombone to the right note before placing his lips on the mouthpiece. He began to blow a solid middle C. A burst of plasma emerged from the bell of the instrument shooting off towards the moon. In the park, people watched in amazement as a laser beam blasted at the moon. The rock in the sky, or potato in the sky as some would say, then disintegrated as it was torched with plasma. The sky lit up with a shower of streaks emanating from what was the moon. Meteors whizzed past the onlookers overhead.
“Hopefully none of those hit Milton,” Mayor Harvey joked.
“I heard Snowville got hit by one of the meteors last time there was a lunar replacement cycle,” Cooper remarked.
Mason stood catching his breath after having destroyed the expired moon. The bird then hopped inside the bell of the trombone.
“Make that new moon, fellow,” Mason whispered to the bird.
After about two minutes, the bird hopped back onto Mason’s shoulder, egg firmly laid in the trombone. Mason took another deep breath.
“Ooooh!” the crowd watched as another laser beam arced across the sky. A ball of plasma coalesced at the same spot where the deceased moon had been moments earlier. Once the laser beam came to an end, the plasma ball started to cool and solidify. The moon had returned, now shining a brilliant white instead of the sorry yellow-brown it was five minutes prior. The night was now well lit by the brand new moon.
“I wonder how many phases this one has. Perhaps we should ask Weatherman Nekaro,” said someone nearby Jose.
“He’s not an astronomer,” Cooper replied, “Perhaps ask Dane instead.”
“Good for ten months,” Mason whispered to himself after examining the bird’s feathers.
== Chapter 3: A Chilly Day in Snowville ==
Weatherman Nekaro woke up the following morning refreshed after a good night’s sleep at a lodge in Snowville. He got to see the lunar replacement cycle from the airport after he landed the previous evening. He had seen them several times before and no longer cared for the Humberto Park festivities in Thomas City. His first thought when he saw the plasma beam was hope that a meteor didn’t disrupt his vacation again this time. Of course, no meteor came just as he hoped, since the morning arrived and he got out of bed ready to spend a relaxing day strolling the snowy streets of the quaint village.
But just as he was getting himself breakfast at the lodge’s buffet counter, his phone vibrated. He thought at first it was just some dumb message from Thomas, and waited until he was seated at a table before checking his texts. When he unlocked his phone and saw what it was, however, he had to restrain himself from banging his head into the table. The text was from the NWS Snowville office urging him to help deal with an emergency. He just happened to be there on the wrong day, just like last time.
He marched into the weather office half an hour later after only eating a single muffin from his breakfast. It was a chilly day and the wind was cascading through his hair before he entered the building. Snowflakes were starting to fall as well. He had been checking the weather models the past couple days for what Snowville would have during his vacation. None indicated anything more than flurries. He thought the weather right before he walked in was pleasant vacation weather and no cause for alarm, but what he saw out the windows a few minutes later changed his mind. The snow was getting much heavier and the wind was buffeting the side of the building. Weatherman Nekaro checked the radar monitor only to see what he dreaded.
“Not another anomaly,” he muttered after what he went through two days prior in Milton.
The radar revealed a large and intense squall line materializing to the southwest of Snowville and rapidly approaching the town. It could not be lake effect as Lake Mindy is northwest of Snowville. Weather station thermometers indicated a sharp temperature drop as the line arrived; 27 degrees Fahrenheit became 4 degrees after just two minutes. The wind picked up and Weatherman Nekaro looked out the window to see a snow drift quickly accumulating on the western side of the building. Lightning then flashed followed shortly by a clap of thunder. The snow only got heavier as the line reached the NWS Snowville office. Nekaro frantically typed out a warning for the abominable snowstorm as the weather continued to deteriorate. After issuing the Winter Storm Warning, he glanced at another screen to see the temperature at Snowville Regional Airport had fallen to 6 below zero and winds gusting to 66 miles per hour.
Across Snowville, residents and visitors huddled indoors as the blizzard raged outside. The snow was piling rapidly and vehicles were getting buried outside. Snow drifts washed up the sides of buildings as the wind howled.
“This can't be happening in September. Even January in Snowville doesn't often see a blizzard like this,” Weatherman Nekaro remarked.
The snow then turned to hail as the wind picked up further. Gusts at the airport now reached hurricane strength as Snowville got pummeled. Then Nekaro noticed it wasn't actually hail that was falling from the sky, but icicles. Large sharp spikes of ice were raining down upon Snowville. The wind-blown ice spikes smashed through second-story windows across the town, first-stories spared by large snow drifts. Nekaro and the other NWS Snowville meteorologists scrambled with rapid-fire warnings to get people into their storm cellars, though electricity had already failed for much of the town.
Jose, sitting on a dock in Thomas City, cast his fishing line into the river. As much as Thomas tried to convince him to join him fishing squid out of Cooper's pool, Jose was more interested in what the river had to offer.
“Not another Magikarp,” he muttered after reeling in his line. His phone then buzzed.
A text had arrived from Jose's friend Turret, “GIANT blizzard in snowville rn!!!”
Jose recalled meeting Turret in Milton the evening he arrived. Turret had to have been there during the fire tornado the next day.
“i'm in a storm cellar again lol,” Turret texted next. Turret must have done the same thing as Weatherman Nekaro and flew to Snowville, Jose thought.
The icicle barrage then ceased and the wind calmed down. Though the storm had taken out Snowville's radar, Nekaro knew the squall had finally passed. Snowville may not have been leveled like Milton was, but it was badly damaged. Buildings buckled under the weight of the snow and frigid air slithered inside through broken windows. Though the worst was over, the airport thermometer now read 11 below zero.
Something had spooked Weatherman Nekaro during the incident, though. Just before the radar went offline, he saw something odd appear behind the line. Some light snow showers appeared to spell something out: COLLIN.
== Chapter 4: Swine Armament (WIP LOL) ==
The 13th of September bustled with more activity than the town of Pigville was accustomed to. After being mostly spared by the icy derecho the previous day, it served to shelter those unlucky enough to have been in Snowville during the incident.
“Why is there a freakin' chicken on that barstool!” Turret laughed as he waited for his breakfast at the Anykščiai Café.
“That looks more like a turkey than a chicken,” Weatherman Nekaro noted between bites of his cepelinai.
“I am not a chicken nor am I a turkey,” the feathered creature quipped before opening its mouth to reveal teeth that no bird would ever have, “I am a velociraptor!”
The café then erupted into a panic for a moment at the revelation of a talking velociraptor, namely those who fled Snowville and were only there for the first time. Turret starting running for the door screaming, but Weatherman Nekaro remained calm. It wasn't just him having been through the events in Milton and Snowville, but he swore he could recognize that voice coming from the dinosaur.
“Everybody calm down! This velociraptor is just our friend Giedrius!” shouted Chris, the bartender. The velociraptor then began to glow. I've seen this before, thought Nekaro. The glowing grew more intense as Giedrius morphed in shape. Then with a flash and a whiff of what some might describe as wet dog, the velociraptor had transformed into a blocky pig wearing a crown. Nekaro was then fully reminded of one time when he saw Giedrius transform into Sans.
The panic had been quelled now that the toothy creature had turned into the Pigville Pig, though non-locals remained confused. The Pigville Pig is so renowned that a marble statue of the crown-wearing blocky pig exists in the center of town square.
“I really scared you all with those teeth,” remarked Giedrius, “though I typically prefer to be Toothless.”
"What is that on the floor?" Weatherman Nekaro noticed.
"Ew! A centipede!" Giedrius cried before panic again erupted.
"Oh, I dropped that," Turret remarked before reaching to pick up the centipede.
"Don't. Touch. That," Giedrius quavered, "It might kill us all!"
"It's not a real centipede. Don't worry," Turret replied, "This is a figurine my friend Jose gave me last week. I'm keeping it as a good luck charm."
"That is almost certainly a bad luck charm," Giedrius retorted, "we need to burn it in a bonfire. Or better yet, destroy it with a tank!"
"Tanks are your solution to everything, silly Giedrius," Chris quipped.
"Well it's been a while and I'm itching to have some fun in my tank," Giedrius beamed before jumping behind the bar and grabbing a pair of cooking tongs from Chris' drawer, holding it in his piggy snout. Giedrius approached Turret, who had picked up the centipede, "hand it to me so I can dispose of this filth."
"Giedrius, I think you might be overreacting a bit," Weatherman Nekaro opined.
< To Be Continued |\|