Angry Birds Reunite - Chapter 6 - Travelling (Part 1)

Rise and shine! It was morning already when Bubbles was the last of the three birds to wake up. It wasn't actually a great start of the day, as Bubbles happened to look upset. He couldn't bear all of the nightmares given to him and the story Matilda told doesn't even help that much. He could remember about giant candy monsters chasing after him while he was running away with healthy food by his side. Other than that, he saw part of his dream retold from Matilda's 'future prediction'. It looked exactly the same, but the only differences were the blank faces and Terence not talking to him, probably because he never seen him talking before.

He looked at Matilda to see how she had been doing. She was standing beside a rock looking at the blue sky. Hal, in a concerned face, came pass by to talk to her. Matilda, being herself, paid attention to look at Hal just in case he need anything.

"You need anything, miss?" the green bird asked.

Matilda smiled up for a bit, pretending nothing happened to her. Actually, she was so distressed on the hopes of the return of Red's flock. She acted like her usual self, making sure Hal won't notice anything strange.

"I'm fine, dear Hal. I don't need anything," Matilda replied politely, keeping up all her best.

Hal knew that didn't look right. Ever since Red, Chuck, Bomb, Terence and the Blues left her all alone on the island with Hal and Bubbles, Matilda should have acted differently. In her eyes, he could clearly tell how hurt she was when she was being betrayed by her own team.

"I should have avoid that from happening if I were with them," Hal regretted. "If only I would still be in the team."

Upon hearing that, the orange bird quickly ran into both of them in dismay. His face was blocked by looking down in ninety degrees. They could only see his top feather and beak.

"I should take the blame…" Bubbles anyhow said without any good reasons.

Hal and Matilda stared at the child in confusion. He hadn't done anything wrong, so why would he say that it was his fault?

"Kid, it's the pigs' fault they stole the eggs and that 'Eggsteriod' thingy," Hal corrected his confession. Matilda agreed with him and thought about what was going on with Bubbles.

Bubbles raised up his face in anger, proceeding to take the blame anyway. "I DON'T CARE IF THAT WAS THE PIG, THE FLOCK OR EVEN THE ICE BIRD'S FAULT! It's my fault AND IT ALWAYS WILL BE!"

Matilda was shocked in disbelief. Bubbles was innocent and he wasn't even involved at that scene. Hal didn't know what trigger Bubbles' strong feelings anymore.

The kid looked down on the ground again. "How could I be selfish with everything I done with adults like you? I wanted to become a better person but nope! My plan didn't really work out pretty well. With all this sugar candies and mischievous behaviour in the past, I can't really put out all the positives of myself at all!"

"Bubbles, you're doing just fine!" Matilda cried out on trying to cheer him up. "One day, when you forget about things, you can start over and have a happy life! You have us and we can help you improve yourself from the past mistakes you made!" She moved herself to hug the kid, only to be pushed back by a sudden crazed Bubbles.

"I DON'T SEE HOW THAT WORKS! Even with all your motivation, it won't do great for me!" Bubbles yelled in tears. "Yes, you helped Red prepared himself for the future and Bomb for not being a doormat. But what about a candy addict? I don't think that would work. I already have ongoing nightmares all because I tried to be a positive person. Well, nobody is perfect at all, so I might as well be more of a loser than a cooperative boy."

"Let him be on his own, Matilda," Hal told her," your motivating skills won't do the good on everybody."

"HE'S A CHILD!" Matilda explained. "Without my help, he wouldn't be able to work on his own. He need a counsellor."

Bubbles spitted off on the ground, showing his lack of interest on listening to his supposedly mother.

"I'm begging you, woman!" Hal nagged her. "If you don't stop trying to help him, his mood, lifestyle, dreams and even future thinking will get worse. Please."

Matilda shook her head. "No," she rejected, "even if he's unstable, mentally challenged or just giving excuses, he still need a counsellor. He will believe that there's still hope for his chang-"

"SHUT UP!"

Matilda immediately looked at Bubbles and it was quite an unexpected response like that. Bubbles just raised up his head as soon as he said that. His eyes were bloodshot red and his clenched his teeth tightly. His top feather went stiff straight and there were already steam coming out of his non-visible ears. He was glaring directly at Matilda face-to-face.

"THAT NEVER WORK, EVEN IF YOUR STORY IS REAL! I'm different from those loved ones of yours, so DON'T EXPECT ME TO CHANGE LIKE THEM! You can't really depend on one person, good or not. You can nag me to change my attitude all day, months or even centuries. But I can tell it in my own naked eyes that the effect WON'T happen. EVER! Do you understand me, mother? I bet you do."

Matilda shook in terror, worried sick about Bubbles' mentality. That actually sounds wrong. She brought herself up and reluctantly accept the choice of leaving him alone. "Okay, child. Have your sweet time."

As they watched Bubbles walking straight to the forest alone, Matilda broke down on thinking something bad to him. "Why would I do that? That's not how it works!" Matilda cried out worryingly.

Hal thought it would really be a good idea to leave him alone, despite the troubles he had for the past 7 years. It did seemed wrong, but they had no other options of helping him.

Bubbles shook his head with regret of his addiction and lack of justice on helping his friends and went to the lake in an attempt to redeem himself. He looked down on the shining water to see the reflection of him. He saw a young child looking distressed and creeped. Everything was beautiful outside. Bubbles just stood there looking down thinking his past would disappear on its own.

He slowly smile, his eyelids closed and said softly in hope for a while, "I wished… that dreams like mine….."

"Should live on like nightmares!"

His eyes widen just as a threat came out of nowhere. Everything now looked red and black. The flowers were burned and the butterflies were lied down dead. The water was replaced with lava, erasing the reflection. They all felt real.

Horrified, Bubbles quickly ran away from the so-called lake. This wasn't supposed to happen, he thought. He looked around at fast-paced, but there weren't anybody around. "Help!" he cried out while still shivering in fear. There weren't anybody out there at all.

He moved backwards in self-defense. He wasn't really sure of what was happening here. He didn't know what to do. It just happened randomly. Then, as he kept on moving back without a second thought, he fell into the lava. He was in hell.

Everything went darker as he felt that he sank way too deep. He couldn't tell whether this was a nightmare or reality anymore. His mindset finally got warped.

Another dark things came into his mind. The 'dark thing' was a ghoul that looked like Matilda, only with tears coming out like waterfall. "Bubbles, don't leave me….." it said with a ghastly-like voice. It suddenly disappear for a split-second and Bubbles could now feel himself deforming from the void. He felt hopeless now.

In reality, he was saved by Hal from the lake that wasn't actually very deep. Matilda ignored Hal's newfound swimming skills as she was more worried about Bubbles. The child seemed to look unconscious.

"This is INSANE! I should have took care of him instead of releasing him!" Matilda screamed in horror.

"I'm sorry, Matilda," Hal apologised but Matilda snapped that out in rage.

"You have to be so 'freaking' sorry for begging me to let go of a 7 year old child!?" Matilda scolded him. "Where's your morality of protecting children!?"

Hal stood up for himself, but did not take the responsibility for almost killing Bubbles. "I know him very well. He's not like any other children we seen. He's an adult."

"You are out of your mind!" Matilda sneered at him in disbelief. "Even if he's acting like an adult, he still needs the safety rules! I know children very well, unlike YOU with your own fantasies."

Hal still didn't know what to believe anymore. Now that the chicken was angry that it was his fault for letting Bubbles drown himself, he couldn't understand Bubbles at all. Despite all this, he felt remorse from the unconscious child.

Hearing a loud horn sound from the cruise ship, Matilda carried Bubbles by herself and told Hal that she would need Tony to heal Bubbles to breathe again. Before she went to that ship, she looked back at Hal in disappointment.

"I think you need to fix that mind of yours," she told her last words before going to the cruise ship.

Hal sighed in sadness. He didn't had a second thought before putting poor Bubbles into coma. He turned to the lake. It still looked shining and beautiful, in spite of an accident.

Going back to his plan of finding his friends, he need to find his youngest childhood friend, a grey falcon in the name of Silver. He remembered that Silver built a treehouse all by herself in a forest not far from Pigs Town. It was funny that while the pigs, especially King Pig, were against the birds for the eggs, Silver was still particularly in good terms with them. Hal still couldn't handle the fact that Silver was raised by the pigs. No wonder Hockey told him that she had rounded-buck teeth when he checked on her.

It didn't take a long journey to find that treehouse of Silver. Looking at the treehouse, Hal described it as a big mansion-like house built on a rather thin tree. Besides, nobody put a unbalanced house on a high thin tree at all. This showed Silver's silly nature that was similar to the Bad Piggies' nature.

"Any birds or pigs up there?" Hal howled with a greet to get an answer.

"Here!"

Hal jumped in surprise. Silver was just behind him.

"How the heck did you just find me, girl dude!?" Hal asked Silver in irritation.

Silver giggled with a goofy sense of humour and replied, "I just knew you were coming to my awesome home! With the power of magic!"

Hal was not surprised to hear that. He already knew magic existed since the Mighty Eagle's time. Then he noticed the decorated phone with her.

"Lemme guess….your favourite game?" Hal asked, judging Silver's experiences with playing her only video game in past times.

"It's a different one this time! A mobile-device game that had in a lot of adorable playable characters and sidekicks! Very fun to play," Silver explained. "It's more awesome and exciting now that I had my favourite fluff-plush in the game so I played it even during exercising time!"

"No wonder I kept seeing Red coming straight to your house," Hal concluded. "Even if he finds you quirky, he still visit your home for one thing."

"True." Silver smirked on the cardinal's passion. "Where's Red, by the way? He's supposed to be here to see me playing the game I told you about."

"Just being busy with Chuck." Hal lied. "These dudes always argue about their own things, don't they?"

Silver heavily sighed on hearing the unknowingly false information Hal gave. "I don't really like the choice of Red becoming a parent. I mean, if he wanted to get a child, I would just tell him to get a girlfriend to mate for an egg. I once met this bird that had the same red colour as him. I think her name is Ruby. Yeah, she looked ALMOST like Red. But, oh well. There's a good reason for her to get left out every single time."

Hal raised his eyebrow. "Never heard of Ruby. Where did ya' find her, amigo?"

"Oh, you know," the grey falcon rolled her eyes, "I can't tell that much, since that isn't relevant to all…..this. Don't ask me more, 'kay?"

"I won't judge you for that," said Hal while still wondering about her.

"Anyways, I have an announcement for you, Hal," Silver told him, mimicking past Terence's voice.

"Dude!" Hal noticed her impression. Silver chuckled on his reaction to her way of sounding like Terence.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Silver appreciated that while still acting. "Anyway, today is the day of visiting Hockey after whatever months we waited for. I don't watch hockey tournaments because well, I don't like hockey."

"Me too," Hal joined in with Silver's dislike. "I'm more into badminton."

"I'm more into Kinect games," she said.

Hal closed his eyes as a facepalm. "That's not sports."

"I got NBTD," Silver responded with a serious face.

"What does that mean?" Hal asked.

"Nothing Better To Do! You haven't read dictionaries yet?" Silver replied with a smug face out of the blue.

"Dude!" Hal yelled again in disappointment for falling into her expression.

"See, Hal?" Silver smirked. "Pigs taught me how to trick people with my own words!"

"Yeah right, this is how you gave Red problems with the pigs when he got temper problems," Hal scolded her. "There isn't any therapist for him now that your so-called 'family' started to steal the eggs!"

"I don't blame them," said Silver. "Red shouldn't have become a father for adopting eggs. Mr. Terence once told him the story of pigs' cruelty with birds for the eggs. Guess what happen? Red refused to believe in that. He said all stories are fake, even with history books. Wow, what have happened to the world?"

"I get your point," Hal nodded, "but that doesn't sound right as well. Do you really want the bird population to go extinct for not reproducing eggs for the future? Red only depend on his children because the number of birds in this island are already less, compared to the number of pigs living in the same island. Geez, woman. I wonder if you even have pity for how hard Red works on saving his eggs every time someone or something did bad things with them. Silver, that's what parents are for."

"Mother Matilda is a parent as well," Silver cut out that point. "I was listening to your conversation with her and then, if you think about it, that part completely conflicts with your point on reproduction. You almost caused that child to go drown in the lake to death. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Hal looked down distressingly. "I thought he would be better on his own. He's smart, after all."

"That's not being intelligent," Silver corrected, "that's called being arrogant. Even Red could tell about that during one of my visits."

Hal could feel his brain hurting from confusion. "Okay, let's not talk about that and visit Hockey."

Meanwhile, in the cruise ship, Matilda was looking outside the window for the view of the ocean while holding a recovered Bubbles who just breathe again from the help of Matilda giving him oxygen from herself. Bubbles, however, seemed to look lost from mental problems.

"Oh, Bubbles," Matilda mumbled worriedly. "You just became insane over your 'nightmare thing' and now you don't even know the differences between real life and dream."

Bubbles gave her a dead stare without saying any word. He couldn't remember what he was doing when he was underwater in the lake.

"I just wanted you to a good, normal child," she cried a little. "But now look at you. I don't even know if you're there anymore."

"...mo-mom….." Bubbles whispered with dried throat. "...sorry….for what I…..did…..tee...you….."

Matilda carried him just as he was about to fall. "Hang on, Bubbles! I'm going to get Tony's help to recover your condition!"

Bubbles looked up in an exhausted way. "...where….we…..at?" he slowly asked. Somehow, his grammar was so bad that he couldn't even use the right words.

"We're going to Finland," Matilda replied, "he usually lived in Helsinki, but because I haven't been to that country, I'm not very sure."

"Yes," Bubbles said.

"Yes what?" Matilda questioned his response.

"Yes, he did lived in Helsinki, just in one of the cabins," Bubbles said with clear words.

"You don't even know Tony," Matilda said while starting to get creeps.

"He looked like Terence, but with fluffy details and light blue colour," Bubbles said happily.

Matilda's eyes widen. Since when did he even guess his details correctly? Most importantly, how did he know that when the appearance wasn't mentioned in her story just before she fainted again?

The bell rang as the announcement mentioned that they were now at Finland. Matilda carried Bubbles tightly as she went down the stairs to the city of Finland. She headed to the train station to go to Helsinki. Bubbles sneezed from the his cold that he got from the lake. Fortunately, there weren't anybody around them hearing the sound of his sneeze.

The sound of the upcoming modern train came on board. Matilda, while still carrying Bubbles like a baby, went inside the train. The interior had air-conditioner, which made Bubbles' cold even worse. Matilda tried her best to take care of him as she took a seat. Well, most of the seats were empty anyway.

It was a quiet place to wait for destination. Looking outside for sky view and need of peace fit Matilda's personality as well as doing her best as a responsible mother. A saddened oriole looked up at her with a blank face. He doesn't seem to understand what she was doing to him, even if it was for doing the right thing. As Matilda checked on how Bubbles was feeling, she saw something strange within him.

"...why…...you…..do this…...to….me….?" The child asked in a low tone.

"Bubbles, you may not hear me but," Matilda admitted her care for him, "I loved you like my own son, just like the Blues. I just need Tony to help you recover."

"..."

Bubbles slowly closed his eyes without saying any words from now on. He doesn't seem to smile nor frown. Strange, but calm.

Matilda looked outside the window with her thoughts on a different subject. "Hal, why would you let him do that? I trusted you as an adult even when you left on your own from the Flock."

The train had reached to Helsinki 45 minutes later. Matilda hurriedly got out to find Tony's house while Bubbles slept on Matilda's head. Matilda asked the citizens to see if there was a cabin. Nobody knew where he lived. Bubbles suddenly woke up again to tell the answer.

"It's just at the hill on the right side, mother."

Matilda shivered in fear from Bubbles' voice. He was supposedly to rest. Nonetheless, she did what he told her so. It was, in fact, the correct way as she saw the big brown cabin with a lake by her left. She stepped on the doormat and knocked the door. As the door creaked, Matilda moved back a little for safety reasons. The person who opened the door was the right person. He's a big blue cardinal who looked exactly like Teren- Welp. Bubbles got his appearance right.

"Matilda?" Tony got taken aback by surprise. "How did you find me? Terence never send you the address, did he?"

Matilda shook her head. "I got a help from a sick child."

Tony became confused. "How is that even possible!? Is he psychic or what!?"

"To be honest, I'm not sure how that happen as well," said Matilda. "But the most important thing is that I'm finally here to seek help from you."

"Okay then." Tony then examine Bubbles' face. He looked extremely tired and unwell.

"What happened to that orange child you holding, miss?" Tony asked.

"He had happened to drown, thanks to one of the former students," Matilda replied.

"Red?" Tony guessed the answer. "Boy, if only he had a therapist for anger management, none of this would have happened."

"Not Red, Hal!" Matilda corrected him in urgent.

"Whoa, calm down, Matilda!" said Tony. "Not everyone have a good memory of remembering who did this and that."

"I AM CALM!" Matilda objected, then seriously calm down from deep breath. "Sorry, I was just in an emergency."

"Sorry if I made you like that," Tony apologised. "Where's my manners when I saw your child feeling unwell. Do not worry, I have medicine inside the cabin."

"Fine, fine!" Matilda shouted hurriedly. "Just let me go inside already!"

"Geez," Tony remarked. "Old motherly ladies these days."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY!?" An enraged chicken heard his comment. "Hmph, you and Terence are the same!"

Tony giggled as soon as he closed the door. "Ah, you made me proud of myself."

Matilda looked back at Tony like a cheetah. "Don't think about this again! Especially when it comes to distressing moments."

Tony raised his eyebrow. "Distressing 'moments'. You mean the eggs stolen again?"

"Not just the déjà vu," Matilda continued, "your cousins and their Flock are GONE! Without me!"

Tony got shocked upon hearing the news. He couldn't stand on knowing about his family being harmed.

"God! How the heck did that just happened!?" Tony yelled in terror as he twitched his eyelids a little. "No wonder you're so angry about it. You just don't want me to know about that."

Matilda looked unsatisfied on Tony's reaction. She expected something better than that. "So…..you helping that ill child I brought?"

"Yes," Tony said as he walked to the cabinet to find the medicine for Bubbles while Matilda sat on the couch with the child lying beside her.

As Tony started working on the suitable medicine for Bubbles, Matilda decided to talk to him in a different topic.

"I wanted to tell you something," Matilda told him. "It's about Terence."

"What about my twin cousin?" Tony waited for her response. "Okay, hold on. Before you restart your conversation, do you need a cup of coffee?"

"No," Matilda declined, "I'm staying here for a short while only."

"Preparing a medicine may stay a longer time," Tony reminded her, "are you sure you don't want the coffee that I kept in the fridge just in case a visitor comes in?"

"A coffee kept in the fridge for a visitor?" Matilda wondered. "How did you know I came here?"

"Lucky, I guess," Tony shrugged.

"Okay then, yes, please?" Matilda accepted his offer.

"I just kept the coffee a few minutes ago," Tony said as he opened the fridge to get a coffee and gave it to Matilda, "make yourself at home."

Matilda glared at him. "2 minutes and you started saying that?"

"I was distracted," Tony said honestly. "And besides, I never had a visitor before, other than Terence. Well, it's still a surprise to see you here now. Where's your beautiful pink eyes? I wanted to see them."

"They're hidden by my eye contacts," Matilda replied. "If you prefer me with pink eyes, I can just take them off!"

"Now I wonder how you didn't get sore eyes from them when you sleep," Tony said as he saw Matilda taking her fake eye contacts off to reveal pink eyes, "and you still look beautiful with your real eyes to this day."

"I have to blend in with black-eye coloured birds in Piggy Island," Matilda replied, feeling better without wearing eye contacts and put them in a solution. "Otherwise, people may see me as a foreigner who just came to their island recently. Really like, I got the comments from some people before I decided to get myself the eye contacts."

Matilda went to continue her previous conversation when Tony came back to prepare the medicine. Before she could do that, she took a sip of coffee Tony gave. It reminds her of Red drinking hot chocolate a lot during one Christmas time.

"As I was saying, your cousin Terence is a rather odd person. I mean, he attempted to become deaf and I found it quite strange. Is it because he knew that the 'pigs stealing eggs' thing was going to happen. It actually happened and maybe that's why when he came back, he seems more quiet than ever. But before I went to Hal's home, guess what? Terence spoke with the same voice as ever! Isn't it because his plan failed? Or he simply lied?"

Tony nodded in acknowledgement. "You know what? Here's one thing you don't know about Terence. Almost everyone knew that you can understand someone deep inside. But you never understand Terence at one point. He can only share his problems to people he CARED for. And by 'people he cared for', I mean his family. This is considered a family secret, so you should not know why he did that."

"I'll respect that," Matilda said, stopping the intended conversation.

The medicine was already finished when their talk ended. Tony poured the medicine on the teaspoon and commanded Matilda to open Bubbles' beak. "Okay, orange! Say 'ah'."

Bubbles woke up in a similar way to what he did a few minutes ago. He still looked tired.

"Ah," Bubbles followed his order, getting the spoon to land on his tongue for him to shallow the curing liquid.

"He will recover in about an hour for now," Tony told Matilda. "Give him a good rest."

"Okay, Tony," Matilda obeyed, tucking Bubbles into a blanket that Tony gave recently.

"Where are you going now that you're done being here?" He asked.

"I'm going to visit Golden Island, my original home," Matilda replied.

"Wow, I actually heard of that before!" Tony exclaimed with excitement all of a sudden. "I never had the chance to visit there…"

"Do you want to come along?" Matilda gave him an offer to join.

"Sure, why not?" Tony accepted. "I've been isolated in this cabin for like how long which only God knows. I'll also take care of Bubbles in case something went wrong with him."

Matilda smiled. "It's good to reunite with you, Tony. Hopefully, you will be able to enjoy your trip because Golden Island is found to be one of the most beautiful places!"

"Hey, Matilda," Tony said in concern. "What about your eye contacts?"

"I need to give my eyelids a rest," she said. "They're already safe in my solution."

Matilda and Tony went along with each other on the way of going to a train that would lead to a different cruise ship. It was indeed the great refreshing memories recalled from old friends. But that was still one thing that need to be fix. Bubbles. He's still not in a good state.

Will he change?

End of Chapter 6