Which is when the muffled explosion-y sound reached them.
Bela and Jakob spun towards the sound, from the direction of Sullen Manor. The glow of the explosion from that direction let them know they hadn’t just imagined it.
“My house!” yelled Bela.
They then saw a meteor-like streak in the sky, arcing glowingly. A smaller streak split off that streak, and quickly angled downward. Towards them. Bela and Jakob dove for cover as a flaming helmet crashed mere feet away. Only the letters KE DU IS remained visible on the charred, mashed-potato-smeared headgear.
They looked back up quickly enough to see, dozens of feet above them, Mike Dukakis and the starchy girth of Yukon Gold wrestling, their clothes still in flames. The former governor had kept thinking quickly ever since his first sight of Bela: quick enough to fight Yukon Gold away from her (a victory that had made him laugh nigh-maniacally), and away from that Cheney guy who’d just past him with that potato gun and hadn’t noticed Dukakis and Yukon Gold brawling, and into the kitchen.
Where Dukakis had thrown Yukon Gold into the microwave.
Dukakis had no way to know it was the walk-in microwave Edwood had installed to cook bears and mountain lions, but he’d remembered the phrase “exploding potatoes in the microwave” and decided that would be the only way to finally stop Yukon Gold. Each time they’d passed the giant unit in their brawling, he’d pressed another button to program it, then he’d grabbed the handle and in one fluid motion grabbed Yukon Gold and shoved him inside, slamming the door. He’d then pressed START. The explosion had happened much quicker than Dukakis had anticipated (though still giving enough time for Jakob to have escaped with both Bela and the gun), but as Yukon Gold had arced away from the detonating unit, he’d grabbed Dukakis by the eyebrows and pulled him along as he’d barreled through the roof and into the sky. The fight was on again. (No, grammatically speaking, the fight had gotten on again. We’re still catching back up to the action.)
The kitchen concussion had knocked Edwood, Something, Woeisme, and Ðìçk Cheney exactly through the front door (conveniently not hitting anything next to it) and into the yard, where they all had crashed. They were still looking around, disoriented and barely able to notice the partly-demolished house, when Jakob and Bela finally saw what had caused the streak.
(Now we’re caught up.)
MASH!
went Dukakis’s fists. SCRUB! went Yukon Gold’s counterattack. POKING FORKS INTO THE SIDE OF THE POTATO SO IT WON’T BLOW UP! would’ve been the next logical step, but neither fighter had known to grab utensils as they’d sailed through the kitchen several sentences ago. They merely continued their mutual pummeling as they flew through the Olympic Peninsula air.
Towards, Bela and Jakob realized simultaneously, the Forks, Washington nuclear power plant.
“I…I think our relationship issues need to wait a minute,” Jakob said.
“Yeah, good point,” Bela said.
• 
Wow – a walk-in microwave, a battle to the death (or at least to the sour cream)a grammar lesson AND the risk of nuclear meltdown, all in under 500 words!Great job!
Glad you liked it. (Yay! First reply!)
Makes me wonder if we can get back in line and write another chapter later. Or maybe I need to WRITE MORE OF MY OWN STUFF.
And it’s not necessarily a fight to the death… he said, coyly…
I love that final exchange between Jakob and Bella, just because they come to the sudden realization that, well, maybe now is not the best time to be emo.
Good reminder to myself, too. Yes, sometimes Emo Chris is Emo. But I needed/wanted to acknowledge their Part 26 exchange somehow.
That was a really fun 500 words to write.
Bravo! Way to reincorporate and add exploding microwaves!