Chapter 14 - 『Gift from a Hamon Trainee』
After another bizarre encounter with the weirdness that characterized Gravity Falls came normality, or at least the closest thing you could get in a town like this.
So another normal day meant another day of work at the Shack. And just like she had said before, Wendy didn't came to work that Monday; that is why Stan tended the cash register at the gift ship and dealt with an indecisive costumer known as Tyler.
Apparently Tyler liked to do his Christmas shopping as early as summer. So he was taking a good look around at the Shack, much to Stan ever increasing irritation. If only something happened so that the showman didn't have to deal with the biker.
"Grunkle Stan?" Called out Dipper.
"Can we go to the diner?" Asked in turn Mabel. "We're huuungry."
Both of them moan and groan about their appetite, unknowingly providing Stan with the excuse he wanted to leave the place. "Joe! Take care of the shop while I take the kids to the diner."
Joseph who had being cleaning inside the "museum" stuck his head through the doorway and asked. "Me? Are you really leaving me in charge?" That had been a first.
"Yeah well, Wendy isn't here so that leaves only you, while Soos run his errand." Stan wasn't worried about the Shack, since Joseph would be too preoccupied dealing with Tyler to do anything while he was alone. "So good luck!" He waved goodbye before going for the door to get as far as possible from that place.
"See you later." / "Good Luck!" Dipper and Mabel bid him well as they too went outside towards Stan's car.
"Sure I can do this." JoJo said confidently as he took his place behind the counter. If Wendy of all people could do this job, then sure as heck he could do so as well. He turned around to see the only costumer at the moment, having a hard time choosing between what shirt he really wanted.
"Puma shirt, Panther shirt. Puma shirt, Panther shirt. Puma shirt…Panther shirt." This went on and on for a good solid minute before Joseph finally intervened.
"Why don't you buy both? Or better yet why don't you sew one half of each shirt together." It was a crack suggestion born out of exhasperation, that is why it was so surprising when Tyler turned around with a big smile.
"That's a wonderful idea!" Then he placed the money for the two shirts next to the register on the counter. "Thank you very much!" And with a skip on his step he finally went away with his two shirts, leaving Joseph completely alone.
A fact he noticed in an instant.
"I'm alone." He said out-loud to himself. "I'm all alone!" After all this time since he arrived, he had not a single moment of complete privacy with him being absolutely alone in a house.
So as any bored 15 year old boy who had an empty house all of him, he did what came natural to him.
"Come on! Come on! Almost there…!"
Joseph then turned on the doorknob only to find he couldn't access Stan's office.
"Damn!" Picking locks was really harder than movies made it look, and unless he breaks the lock, there was no way to enter the office and look around the place to find some leverage against his employer.
"Maybe I should look around the house and see what else I can find." It was that or going back to work. "Who knows maybe I'll find another secret room." He joked of course. He had already found a secret room with Soos, there was no way there was another one, like say… behind the large bookcase on the first floor.
That would be utterly ridiculous.
く==OneQuickCheckUpLater==
"You son of a…!"
ANOTHER SECRET ROOM!?
Another room where he could've stayed at instead of having to crash in with Soos and his grandmother, bless her soul, opened her doors to him despite the financial situation they were in! He swore he was gonna repay that woman someday and kick Stan's ass for his lies!
But enough of that, he had a secret room to explore.
It wasn't exactly a very large room, but it was spacious enough to easily be someone's bedroom or some sort of personal study. There was a large L-shaped sofa that could seat several people and even serve as a "bed" to crash on. There were some file cabinets and a chest drawer, an old comfy-looking chair, a three-way mirror obscured under a blanket, a side door that led to a small bathroom and most eye-catching of them all a blue fluffy carpet.
Seriously?! Why didn't Stan lend him this room or at least turned it into a break room or something! Anything other than to hid it behind a bookcase!
That's when Joseph realized something! If Stan was hiding this room, then there must be something valuable or embarrassing he was trying to hide from others. Either case, JoJo was determined to find it!
The first place he looked was the file cabinets yet he either found them empty or containing documents with strange words and math equations and symbols too advanced for him to understand.
The next place, of course, was the chest drawer which had old clothes in the first and second drawers, but in the third and final one he found something rather curious. The third drawers had several bits and pieces of weird stuff, but most prominent of all was a book.
A red covered book.
"This is-?!" A book that looked very much like the journal Dipper always carried around. "No wait, it can't be." Sure eerily similar as the one Dipper had, but there were distinctive differences: the hand on the cover was smaller and Silver colored instead of Gold, it had five fingers instead of six like the original and instead of a number "3" in the middle of the palm, and it had a name instead.
"Lisa?" Joseph read out-loud. Opening up the cover, he found a picture of a young girl, around Mabel's age, with short dark brown hair standing in front of a wood cabin with a smile on her face. "You must be Lisa. You sure were a cute girl." Looking at the back of the picture, he found a date written on it.
Summer of 1977.
"That's almost four decades ago." Well, more like 35 years ago, but Joseph wasn't one who was too quick with numbers. "If she is still alive, she must be an old hag by now."
く==MeanwhileInVenice==
A beautiful woman with long dark brownish hair sneezed once more making her student worry.
"Are you sure you aren't sick, coach?"
"My health isn't so fragile that I need a brat like you to worry about me!" She put on a strong front, but in reality she was planning to later get some medicine just in case; she was nearing 50 after all.
く==BackInGravityFalls==
Although now that Joseph took a good look at her, he started to feel as if this Lisa girl was familiar to him, as if he had met her before. But that was simply not possible. So instead, he focused in the meaning of this book being in this place.
"Why would Stan have this?" It obviously didn't belong to him, so why keep it? "Maybe it belongs to a member of his family?" A cousin or a niece, were JoJo's best guesses. "I guess I can read to find out."
Though he would think it twice before invading the privacy of a girl by reading what most likely was their diary, since he didn't want to be labeled a snoop or a creep; but since it was quite old, he was sure nobody would ever mind if he took a peek inside.
So he opened a random page hoping to find the classic type of entries a 13-year old would write in a diary: like how her day went, a secret she wanted to confess, or even a dream she had. Instead he found the exact opposite.
"Life Magnetism Overdrive."
Joseph read the title head utterly perplexed. This was not something a girl would write on her diary, yet he kept on reading.
"Living beings, including the human body, are able to produce weak, almost unnoticeable, magnetic fields making them into 'living magnets.' But with a Hamon Overdrive, one can increase the power and range of that magnetic field of their body or of others."
The book then went into detail about possible applications for this technique and the tale of a Hamon user who use this same technique to create a glider out of leaves.
"This is-! This is-!" This was exactly like the technique he developed and used against Manly Dan in that Arm Wrestle competition they had. Except that it was exactly a new technique and in fact the book already had a name for it!
Turning on the pages, Joseph found even more.
"Hamon Cutter."
Now that sounded deadly.
"Using Hamon to shape to water into a razor edge, a Master can convert any liquid into a "blade" sharp and dense enough to cut through solid objects like stone or some metals as well as help deflect incoming projectiles."
Then the page continued with drawings and diagrams of how one could shape water and what forms were the most efficient.
A technique like this would've come in handy back when Gideon was kicking JoJo's ass with his magic powers! If only had he found this sooner! Why would Stan hide something so incredible from him! Wh-
Wait a second!
"Why does Stan have this?!" Why the hell would that old con artist have a journal with Hamon techniques?! He must know how important or valuable this was; otherwise he would've gotten rid of this long ago. Or worse! Use it to scam money out of gullible tourists.
"There must be an answer in here somewhere!" Flipping to the very front page, Joseph hoped to find some kind of "intro" or "prologue" that could help and answer some of his questions. And lo and behold he found something.
"If you are reading this, this means you really kept your promise to come back and visit me again, just like I kept mine of writing this journal."
Joseph read somewhat perplexed. Was this book a gift? Judging for the handwriting it obviously belonged to Lisa. But the question was to whom she dedicated this book to.
"I really hope I am there to present this to you, but in case I am no longer in Gravity Falls I want you to know that despite the very short time we had together you help and inspire me more than you could even imagine. Thanks to your advice and encouragement I was able to finally expand upon the teaching of my Masters and further develop Sendō in ways I never imagined."
So it seems that the time of writing this Lisa wasn't more than a student practitioner of Hamon and the person who she dedicated this book wasn't her master or a student, but someone else who apparently help a lot.
"Of course, not all of this was done on my own. Ford, the man I told you about, was very supportive in helping me with some notes, the drawings and diagrams you'll find inside. He is a very good artist! I really hope he is there to meet you, and if he is I am sure you two already hit it up nicely."
Ford? Who was-? Did she mean Stanford Pines? Stanford Pines who was nothing but a conman that only cared about money and his self-interests before others? That Stan Pines?!
"There's no way she is talking about the same man I'm thinking." I mean, in the picture he found, Lisa was standing in front of what was clearly the Mystery Shack 35 years ago. So maybe she was talking about another person named Ford who live in this place before Stan came in and probably stole the deed of the place and turn it into a Tourist Trap.
That was the only explanation that made sense, to Joseph.
"He was even nice enough to develop that idea of a Hamon Mask you told me about. At first I thought it would not be possible, but with his genius now training proper Hamon breathing will be far easier for beginners."
"Mask?" Joseph quickly looked back inside the drawer, remembering he found something that look like a respirator mask among the stuff inside the drawer. "This is the Hamon Mask." He said as he pulled it out to take a better look at it. "So this Ford Guy made this?" Another reason why this guy couldn't possibly be the Stan he knew because his boss was anything but a genius inventor, if his cheap made-up attractions were anything to go by.
"But of all things you help me with, none can compare with how you help me re-discover an old forgotten technique."
"Forgotten Technique?" Now that sounded quite interesting. "I wonder if she wrote about it in this book."
"If you hadn't stumbled upon me on that clearing I would've probably spent many hours throwing heavy Steel Balls at trees for days before giving up completely."
"Steel Balls?" JoJo took another look inside the drawer and found said Steel Balls, that had the carving of two hexagons and several lines; they were as big as a baseball and weighted a whole lot more, around five pounds (2.3 kg) each. "These are heavy!" Still he had no idea what they were used for this Forgotten technique.
"This book is testimony of all the accomplishments I made thanks to hard work and your help. I wish this serves you well. As I'm sure it would help further generations of Sendō Teachings. "
"From your friend Lisa, with all of my love to you: Joe"
"What is going on?" Joseph pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to clear his head. 'Lisa, Ford, Hamon, Forgotten techniques, Steel Balls and Joe.'
Was Lisa the Acolyte sent by Straizo to help with the investigation of Gravity Falls? Was Ford part of the group of researchers sent by the Speedwagon Foundation? Could either of them be the Author of the Journal that Dipper carried around with him everywhere? Where were they now? Were they still alive? What did they discover? And what does the Stone Mask have to do with any of this?
This questions and names and words resonated all over his head trying to connect and fit into an unfinished puzzle that was the ever increasing Mysteries of Gravity Falls.
Even worse, when he read the name Joe, for a second he believed that Lisa was referring to him and that this book was dedicated to him. But that was impossible. He could've never met with this Lisa girl because he wasn't even born yet. And this guy Joe wasn't him; no matter how many times Stan kept calling him that.
Even though it make no sense at all, finding this book and having in his hands just felt right. As if Fate had guided him to find it.
"But what should I do now?" Joseph placed a hand to the side of his face. He had stumbled upon this book either by fate or by complete dumb luck, and there was no way in hell he was just going to put it back where he found it. This book and the knowledge it contained was what he needed! It was the mean to help him become stronger in order to survive the craziness that this town kept throwing his way and protect his new friends.
Joseph decided he was going to keep it: the book and the mask and the Steel Balls and everything in that drawer; although, the teen debated whenever to tell anyone or confront Stan about of what he found in the room. Who knows how Stan would react if Joseph told him about finding the room and confronted him with questions about Lisa and Ford? What if the man decided to take the book away from him denying Joseph of this knowledge he desperately needed?
Even if he went all out against Stan, nothing that he found connected the old man directly with this journal, besides the fact that Joseph found it in his house. It was circumstantial at best, and the conman would just deny knowing anything and be tight-lipped about it.
"I better keep this entire thing secret." It was for the best. Otherwise it would alert Stan and that would make it even more difficult to get any info out of him. "For now I better get this stuff out of here and put everything back where it was." And later once he's gotten some of these techniques down and dig up some concrete evidence that either linked or exonerated Stan to the Journals, he would come clean.
As quickly as he could, Joseph put the contents of the third drawer inside a box he found, before putting everything else he moved back where it originally was. Then he closed the door and pushed the large bookcase back where it belong, obscuring the entrance to the secret room.
Once he was done, he placed the box behind the counter of the gift shop, hiding it in plain sight among other old boxes no one ever checked. Then he sat next to the cash register and pretended to do Wendy's job, at least until anyone came back.
Thankfully the teen employee didn't have to wait long, because soon after Soos came back from his errand. "What's up JoJo?"
"Yo Soos!" He greeted very happy to see the repairman. "Could you please do me a big favor?"
"Sure, anything for a bro." The man smiled back, "What do you need?"
"See, I need a place to keep a box of stuff safe, so I wondered if you could please lend me some space in your storage unit." It was that or bring the stuff back to Soos' house where his grandmother could stumble upon it when she cleaned the house. Though his like Soos and Abuelita, he really needed his own space so he could keep what he found a secret.
"Sure! Here you go!" Soos thought nothing about the request, pulled out the key to the storage unit from his pants and handed it over to Joseph. "Take this extra copy I have."
"Thanks Soos, you're a life saver!" Joseph smiled as he placed the key into his pocket for safe keeping. He also erases the quick mental note to make a copy of the key for his personal use, now that he had a key of his own.
"Don't sweat it, dude. Besides the place is pretty empty now that I'm not storing my boat in there." Despite his cheery attitude, this was a reminder for Jospeh of how said boat was tarnished by the supposed Monster in the lake.
"Say, could you do me another favor?" the teen asked somewhat bashful now that he was about to ask more out of the repairman. "There's some stuff I gotta do in town and I…"
"I get it dude." Soos cut in still in a good mood. "You can go do your thing, I cover for you."
"Really? Dude, you are the best!"
"So I've been told." He joked. To him some of the things he did for his friends weren't that big of a deal for him. "Good to see you are starting to feel better dude." Ever since last week the teen had been in some type of depressed funk that was starting to worry him. "Today you're like back to your old self and stuff."
"Remember when I said I had stuff I needed to settle on my own? Well, let's say I found a way to settle them once and for all." Really, finding that room was a godsend for him. "Thanks a lot for your help, man."
"That's what bro's do for each other dude."
After an epic fist-bump, Joseph took his leave with his box of goodies. So eager he was for Lisa's journal that when he arrive to the Storage Place, he stored his stuff and started to read the whole thing from the very beginning, not wanting to miss a single thing.
Joseph excitement was so much that he didn't return to Soos' house for the night.
く==TheVeryNextDay==
Joseph groaned.
He really had gone overboard the day before staying late reading Lisa's Journal and trying on some of the techniques and exercises it showcased to the early hours in the morning, is what was causing him to feel like crap today.
And the Hamon Mask he was wearing wasn't helping at all.
According to Lisa, this Hamon Mask was some sort of Oxygen reducing mask that would help improve his Hamon by Hypoxic training. By training his breathing with reduced levels of Plasma Oxygen it would increase his vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), meaning he was going to produce more blood cells and better able to restore oxygen supply to tissues; which would help increase the output of his Hamon in a more efficient way as before.
The only problem was that if he over-trained to the point his VEGF grew more so than necessary it would lead to the formation of tumors and cancer in his cells. Something Joseph really wanted to avoid at all costs. Sothe book recommended a training regimen of high-intensity, short-term usage, followed by intermittent training without the mask, is likely the most beneficial way to benefit from hypoxic training.
But in order to start his training, he first needed to acclimate to the oxygen deprivation and how exactly is it he needed to regulate his breathing in order to properly produce Hamon. So that is why he was walking back to Soos' house with the mask on.
It was during this trek that he found Dipper by himself looking somewhat dejected. "Hey Dipper!"
Te boy turned around trying to locate the source of the voice who called for him, until it finally settled on the Teen. "Joseph? Is that you?" He almost didn't recognize him with the strange mask on. "What's up with the mask?"
"Yes it is me." He took off the mask and let it hang from his neck. "And this is an Oxygen Reducing Mask! Pro-Athletes use these to train."
"But you aren't exactly an athlete." Despite the big developed body the guy had.
"It is to help me with my Hamon breathing." JoJo explained, knowing that Dipper would get why he use it, and wouldn't be the type to wonder where he had gotten that idea to use one, since to him Joseph was the Hamon Expert.
"Oh, I see…" Dipper said looking down to his feet. It didn't take a genius to notice how gloomy the boy was and that there was something gnawing him on the back of his mind.
"Say, wanna grab a bite with me? I'm famished!" Joseph offered hoping that lunch would soften the boy up to tell him what was wrong, not to mention that he was indeed very hungry and needed sustenance. "Come on, my treat!"
"Sure…"
く==OneSatisfyingLunchLater==
Joseph and Dipper remained at the Diner, and Dipper was finishing telling him about his solo adventure with these half-man half-bull humanoids who were pressuring him to kill a Multi-bear in order to become a MAN.
Joseph didn't know what was crazier, that the tale featured even more strange creatures than they had come across before, or that he believe it without question. His time in Gravity Falls really desensitized him of anything supernatural or paranormal.
At this point he would believe almost anything.
"So I said no." Dipper finished his tale about how he spared the life of the Multibear and confronted the Manotaurs about it. "It just wasn't right."
"Tell me one thing Dipper: Do you think I am manly?" Jospeh asked out of the blue, somewhat blindsiding the boy with the question.
"Yes." I mean, how couldn't he?
"And why is that?"
"Hm…because you are big and strong…?"
"I'll take the compliment," Joseph smiled at him. "But I'll tell you that it is the wrong answer." he continued with a smile sigh. "Being Manly is not about the muscles or the chest hair or eating meat, it is about doing what a man does."
"What does a man do?" Dipper asked wanting to really know.
"A man stands up for what he believes is right, but also admits when he is wrong and changes for the better; kinda like you did."
"Huh?"
"You defeated a monster by yourself, but when you realized he wasn't a bad guy, you have the guts to admit your mistake and even confronted the Manotaurs on their BS and stood up for your beliefs. That's pretty damn manly to me." Despite his age and stature, Dipper was really shaping up to become a great man one day. It almost reminded him of the stories Uncle Speedwagon told about Joseph's grandfather; how Jonathan was so brave and courageous, but also smart and kind.
The very definition of a proper gentleman.
"You really think so?" Dipper asked hopefully and Joseph answered him with a smile.
"I know so." This in turn made the gloomy boy smile too. "Besides I'll let you in on a secret." Joseph said ina low voice and leaned forward. "BABBA is pretty good."
"You like BABBA too?" Dipper was honestly surprised by that admission.
"They won the Eurovision Song Contest 1974 for a very good reason." Joseph said sagely with arms crossed and a nod. "Disco Girl is catchy but I really like "Mayday" just a little more."
"Oh that's a good one too." Dipper nodded enthusiastically, before he started reciting. "So when you're near the coast can you hear me calling, Mayday."
"Nothing short of love could ever hope to save me, Mayday." Joseph recited back.
"Don't you go, can't you hear I am calling you on?"
"Now you're gone, will someone else carry me on?"
Both boys then share a laugh. Letting their previous worries be bygones. Tomorrow would be another day, but for now they would enjoy themselves with just the little things in life, like a good song between friends.
く==ToBeContinued==
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『Hvs Ghssz Pozzg igsr hc pszcbu hc ob Whozwob Vcfgs Foqsf』
Author Notes:
Sorry for the delay, but I was informed that a person in this site posted an unauthorized translation of this story, claiming it as his own. I tried to reason with this person but he refused to take down the story, so I had no other choice to report him. Once the story was taken down I thought it was the end of it, but a few days later this person re-uploaded the story. That's when I was informed by a fellow author that this guy had done the same to several other people on this and other sites.
I already filed my report of his main and various other accounts he has in FF, but knowing the type of person that lurks the internet I don't think he'll go away anytime soon.
As for the notes on this chapter:
Don't you worry about Joseph's progression. He will not get an INSTANT POWER-UP that will make him OP invincible. The book itself is merely a tool to guide him in his training since there are no Hamon masters available. Not to mention it would teach him some other new tricks. *Cough,cough*Steel Balls*Cough,cough* Thought that might prove too difficult for him as of now since he still a greenhorn with Hamon.
Also the book serves to connect more JoJo characters to Gravity Falls. Whe now know it was Lisa the Hamon Acolyte who helped in the investigation of Paranormal activities here in Gravity Falls. And what was her relation with Ford?