Author's note: Before we begin, I'd like to point out that this is one of the chapters I was looking forward to writing the most in all "The Blue Thunder Team"! I won't spoil anything, but you'll understand while reading it. So let's start right now!
With the whole Hollow Face ordeal being done, Nightfly was able to bring Blu back to Rio de Janeiro after thanking his good friend, Isaiah, for his help. They started by going to see Jewel who immediately wrapped her wings around her boyfriend as soon as she saw him. "Where have you two been?! I was worried sick!" she exclaimed, caught between anger and relief. Of course, once they explained everything to her, the angry part completely faded away, and she just thanked heaven for bringing her significant other back.
The event left a scar in Blu's heart after his very first kill. It took two days doing nothing but sit in his nest in Jewel's company before the desire to go outside finally returned to him. Blu decided to go at Luiz's garage so that he could thank Apollo for making his sword. He didn't really have the chance to do so after receiving the weapon because Nightfly and he had to escape in a hurry. Once it was done, the three Spix's macaws went at Lazaro's for a little meal to share together.
"There you go!" Rosita announced as she arrived at the blue birds' table with plates in her wings which she pulled down before all three of them. "The ultimate combination of bread snacks from East and West. Enjoy!"
Blu gave an inspecting look to the food in his plate. It looked like some sort of calzone... but he couldn't tell what type exactly. However, judging by the smell, it was probably delicious.
"What's that thing?" Jewel asked.
"It's called a calzone, Jewel," Blu explained. "A calzone is an Italian oven-baked folded pizza that originated in Naples. A typical calzone is made from salted bread dough, baked in an oven and is stuffed with salami, ham or-"
Jewel interrupted her mate by pulling a feather on his beak. "It's okay, Blu, I don't need an overcomplicated explanation; I was just curious is all." She kissed Blu's cheek which caused him to blush cutely.
"I've never seen such food before," Nightfly remarked with taking his calzone in his wing. "Let us find out if it is good or not." Opening his beak, he took a bite in the food which Blu and Jewel did afterwards too.
The three blue birds' eyes shot wide open as soon as the food's taste settled in. Its golden bread was crispy without lacking softness while the inside content was liquid and melting everywhere in their mouth. Pulling their head back following the bite, they got to see cheese ropes coming from inside the calzones stretching while being connected to their beaks.
"This... is... AMAZING!" Blu beamed, sucking the gooey cheese inside his beak. "The bread isn't too hard and this cheese is of first quality! Linda never made any pastries like this!"
"What's this strange liquid inside?" Jewel asked after sucking her own cheese in, staring at the red vegetable-filled sauce inside.
"Is this... curry?" Nightfly asked, doing his own little inspection by touching the sauce with a wingtip and pulling it inside his beak. "Yes, you can tell from the rich flavor and the unique aroma that came out once the calzone got open."
"Special, isn't it?" Blu, Jewel and Nightfly turned their heads just in time to see a little ball of black and white hopping across the restaurant and directly onto their table without stepping on their plates. A little bird with a clown face and his back head feathers tied into a ponytail grinned with a proud expression as his small wings were crossed at his chest. "It's a unique meal you won't find anywhere else in this city."
"Hi, Lazaro," Blu greeted the puffin with a smile. Even though the two of them still weren't friends, that didn't mean he couldn't have a good attitude around him. "What IS this meal?"
"It's a special recipe mixing Italian and Japanese cuisine; it's called curry calzone," the puffin explained. "To make the curry, I filled the bottom of a pot with tomatoes and half a cup of water to prevent them from burning. Once they became soft enough, I mashed them up, tossed them in the onions and mushrooms, and cooked the whole up. After that, I only had to dissolve some roux in the tomato sauce until it was even and cool everything. The dough took me about an hour to prepare, and afterwards, I only had to wrap it around the mix - after adding mozzarella, of course - bake everything, and there you have it, nice plates of curry calzone!"
Jewel blinked her eyes a few times and leaned toward Nightfly. "Did you understand anything he said? That was all like talking in a foreign language to me," she mumbled.
"Cool. Say, Lazaro, I wanted to thank you for helping Jewel while Nightfly and I were away. I truly appreciate it," Blu gratefully told the puffin with a smile.
After returning to Rio, Jewel told Blu and Nightfly how she was saved from certain death right after their departure to Italy. Apparently, when night fell, Jewel left Nico and Pedro's samba club to go meet them at Luiz's garage. On her way, a werewolf jumped out of nowhere and gave chase to her. She attempted to fly away, but found herself pinned to the ground by the feral monster. Before it could bite her down, Lazaro came out of nowhere and knocked it away with a well-placed dive kick in the face. The little puffin was heading back to his restaurant after going to a market for some tomatoes. A fight ensued during which the werewolf clawed at Lazaro whom easily evaded all the attacks thanks to a mix of his speed and small size, fighting back with devastating kicks. When the monster became too tired and hurt to keep fighting, it just ran away into the night never to be seen again. After helping her back up, Lazaro brought Jewel to his restaurant where she would be safe for the night.
"Hum, yeah, sure, no problem," Lazaro said, rubbing the back of his head with a wing and trying to hide a faint blush.
"You don't mind that I told him about our whole situation, right?" Jewel asked with a cheeky smile. Since he saved her, she decided to tell Lazaro about Nightfly, the monsters, magic, and everything happening to them.
"Of course not, Jewel. After saving your life, I think he deserved to know," Nightfly recognized before taking another bite of his curry calzone.
The puffin in question hopped off the table, leaving for a second and returning with cups of apple juice for his customers. "There, you don't wanna fight monsters with empty stomachs. Eat everything and drink this." The macaws proceeded to thank the puffin for his kindness before letting him return to his kitchen and enjoy their meal.
The trio spent the next half-hour eating and chatting around their table. Blu finished first as he was more used to human food than the two others, but that didn't mean he ate very fast. When they finished, they all laid back in their chairs with happy, relaxed smiles on their faces.
"Aww, that was one of the best meals I ever had!" Blu sighed, patting his stomach with a wing.
"I agree. As much as I enjoy fruits, that human food was wonderful," Jewel admitted, feeling all warm on the inside because of the hot curry.
"As far as cuisine goes, I think your friend is the best cook I ever had the chance to come across," Nightfly admitted, just before a burp escaped his beak. "Oops! Excuse me."
A little grin formed on Blu's beak. "You think that was bad? Listen to this!" Opening his beak, Blu let out a louder burp followed by an amused laughter.
"My gosh, Blu! That's disgusting!" Jewel exclaimed, her facial features twisted in a disgusted frown. "You boys are so gross and immature-BUUUUURP!" After releasing the loudest burp of the group, she covered her beak with both wings and blushed madly. For a few seconds, nobody said anything until all three of them burst into fits of laughter.
"WE'RE immature?! You burped the loudest!" Blu pointed out in a mocking way.
"I didn't do it on purpose, and you know it!" Jewel defended herself while playfully nudging her boyfriend
Once the laughing wave died down, Blu wiped a tear from his eye and then looked at his girlfriend with a serious expression. "Jewel, I've been waiting to tell you something important."
"What is it?" Jewel asked, her voice a bit dry from laughing so much, and her eyebrow curiously raised at the tone switch of her boyfriend.
"Jewel... What would you say about seeing Moose Lake, Minnesota?"
"... What?!" Jewel asked with a confused expression.
"You remember when Nightfly said that he used a portal to take us from Rio to Italy?" Blu asked. "Well, turns out that he can actually take us anywhere in the world with this technique. So, if he wanted, Nightfly could take us directly to my former home in the United States within minutes. So? What do you say?"
Jewel blinked her turquoise eyes at this offer. "Leaving to another country? Hum... I don't know, Blu. I've never been outside of Brazil before..."
Blu took his girlfriend's wings with his and gave her the most sincere smile possible. "Come on, Jewel, don't be afraid. Minnesota isn't dangerous; I lived there my whole life. It's just gonna be for a few minutes or hours, depending on whether you like it or not. Plus, don't you wanna see the place where I grew up?"
Jewel stared at the floor, thinking about her mate's offer. After a few seconds, she made up her mind and gave him a smile. "Okay then, if you really want to, I guess a little visit wouldn't hurt."
"Thank you so much, honey. You won't regret it!" Blu beamed, giving her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He then turned toward his mentor. "Can we go right now, Nightfly?"
"Sure. But it'll take some time for my portal to be ready, so you'll have to be patient," the older macaw replied.
After bidding farewell to Lazaro, Hernandez and Rosita, the trio of blue birds left the restaurant and went out into the streets. Nightfly sat down in a meditation pose, his eyes closed, and his mind focused. Before long, the exact same light blue portal that he and Blu used to escape the Hollow Face appeared before them. They could see a lot of white coming from the other side along with a cool breeze flowing their way.
"There it is," Nightfly announced with opening his eyes and standing up. "Our door to Blu's hometown. Who wants to go first?" he asked, designing the portal with his wing.
"Let's go! Let's go!" Blu exclaimed in excitation, not wasting a second to dash across the portal.
"... Guess that answers it," the hooded macaw remarked with an amused chuckle.
Jewel was about to follow her boyfriend when the surprising sensation of something stinging her in the neck interrupted her course. "Ouch! What the...?" Reaching a wing up, she rubbed her neck, but couldn't touch anything. What just happen?
"Jewel? Is something wrong?" Nightfly asked when he noticed she wasn't moving.
"No, it's just... I felt something sting me in the neck," she explained with rubbing her body part with a wing to make sure there truly wasn't anything. "Bah, probably a mosquito or something. I just hope my skin won't get irritated."
With that being said, Jewel crossed the portal with Nightfly following suit behind. As the portal closed, the blue birds failed to notice a figure hiding on one of the nearby buildings' rooftop. "The virus has been perfectly applied. Count Fritvozia will be happy to learn that his plan is set in motion..."
A powerful wave of nostalgia swarmed over Blu's heart as he inhaled and exhaled the cool Minnesota air. Nightfly's portal brought him in the very middle of Moose Lake's town. Due to the time difference between Brazil and America, the sky was rather dark above their head with a touch of brown because of the night clouds getting illuminated by the city's lights. Even after all the time he had passed in Brazil, Blu could tell nothing had changed at all; his little town was still peaceful and covered in white. The cool atmosphere and comfortable silence was a perfect contrast to Rio's warmth and party atmosphere. Two different things... but Blu still loved both.
"Brrr! It's freezing cold out here!" Jewel exclaimed, wrapping her wings around her trembling body. Having grown in Brazil, the change of temperature felt really hard to her.
Blu wrapped a wing around her to keep her comfortable. "Jewel, welcome to my home, Minnesota!"
As much as the cold was bothering her, Jewel couldn't help but widen her turquoise eyes in wonder, staring at the seemingly endless white all around. Her gaze slowly zeroed down to stare at her talons which she wiggled a bit in the white, cold substance. "What's this?"
"It's called snow, Jewel," Blu explained. "It's the kind of thing you can only find in cold places like here. To sum it up, it's like solidified water... but not like ice."
Another detail bothered the female macaw. "What's this... smoke coming out of my beak?"
"It's called steam, Jewel," Nightfly explained. "It comes out of your beak when you stand in a very cold atmosphere because your breath is warm." Following this little science lesson, he turned toward Blu. "So? You make us a visit tour, Blu?"
"I was just waiting for you to ask! Follow me, guys!" Blu said in excitation, leading his girlfriend and mentor to visit his hometown.
The visit of Moose Lake was rather uneventful as there wasn't much to see outside the shops, snow, and frozen lakes. Thankfully, Jewel enjoyed stepping in the snow throughout the visit. At one point, Blu decided to show her how to make a snowball that could be used in snowball fights or to make a snowman. Feeling playful, the female Spix's decided to throw a snowball in her boyfriend's back when he wasn't looking. This led to the two of them throwing snow at each other while Nightfly just watched in amusement.
"Alright, alright, stop it!" Blu demanded, trying to wipe all the snow away from his feathers. "I don't know about you guys, but all this made me cold. Wanna go grab something to drink? I know a shop that makes really good hot chocolate and the owner is my friend."
"This sounds like a good idea; I could go for a warm drink," Nightfly said in agreement. "You come, Jewel?"
"Nah, you go ahead; I'm gonna stay here and play around in the snow for a little longer," Jewel denied, taking snow to start her snowman.
"Okay, it's as you want. Just don't go too far and try to stay away from the road okay? Don't wanna find you hit by a car," Blu advised her before walking away with Nightfly. "Have fun!"
After waving at her boyfriend, Jewel rolled some snow until it became a huge snowball that would constitute the lower body of her snowman. She planned on finishing her work before the return of her two friends. Blu was right; this truly was fun! Unfortunately, before she could finish the second ball, something happened. Jewel started feeling tired with her breath becoming short.
"W-What's... going on?" the female macaw asked herself, reaching a wing to her forehead as she started feeling dizzy. "I... don't... feel well..." Soon, vertigo settled in and the poor girl bent forward to throw up in the snow. Why was she feeling like this all of a sudden? Was it because she wasn't used to the cold temperature?
The misfortunate macaw started staggering from left to right and right to left, losing the strength to stand up. Next thing she knew, she found herself lying on the side of her face over the cold snow, consciousness starting to slip away from her. Before falling into the dark, she saw a figure approaching her. A white figure with two golden glowing balls and a pink light...
"Hmm, this is good hot chocolate," Nightfly remarked after taking a sip from the sweet beverage. "Your friend was very kind to offer us these."
"Yeah, good thing Linda was good friends with her," Blu remarked in agreement taking a sip of his plastic cup himself. "Hey, Jewel, we're back. Do you wanna try some...?!" The Spix's macaw stopped his sentence upon realizing his girlfriend was nowhere to be seen. "... What the heck? Where's Jewel?!"
"Did she already get tired of playing in the snow?" Nightfly suggested, pointing at the half-finished snowman Jewel started earlier. "Though that seems unlikely seeing all the fun she had when we left."
Panic starting to settle in, Blu dropped his hot chocolate on the ground and frantically looked everywhere. "Jewel? Cheese and sprinkles, JEWEL! WHERE ARE YOU?!"
While Blu desperately called for his girlfriend, Nightfly noticed something on the ground next to the unfinished snowman and kneeled down to inspect it. "Hey, Blu, stop screaming. I think I found the answer to our question."
"What is it?" Blu asked, rushing to his mentor.
"If I look correctly at the shape of the snow here, it seems like a body collapsed down. Maybe it was Jewel..."
"A-Are you sure? But why would she have collapsed in the snow like this?" Blu asked, starting to get even more worried.
"No idea. Maybe for one reason or another, she ran out of energy and fell down on this very spot." Nightfly then noticed a trail right next to the spot in question. "And look. This trail indicates that the same body has been dragged across the snow."
"So you're saying... Jewel has been knocked unconscious and dragged away?!"
"I'm afraid that's the case," Nightfly replied, sweat forming on the back of his head. "The only question is who did this and why? I never heard of monsters knocking birds in the middle of a street to drag them away instead of devouring them on the spot."
"We'll think about that later! For now, we need to catch up with Jewel before she gets too far! Let's go!" Blu ordered and started running along the trail.
The blue birds followed their trail for many seconds all the way outside of Moose Lake's town. Eventually, they came to a stop with surprised expressions on their faces. The trail in the snow came to an abrupt end and got replaced by what looked like animal footsteps in the snow.
"Are these steps of... a reindeer?" Blu asked.
Jewel groaned as consciousness started returning to her, her eyelids pulling themselves open and the terrible taste of iron invading her beak. Her whole body felt unusually hot (and not in a good way) with her eyes being so irritated that just blinking them hurt her. After at least ten blinks, her view became adjusted enough to properly see. However, her first move was interrupted by a terrible pain that made her feel like her head was going to explode.
'Oww... My poor head... My throat, my... everything...,' Jewel thought in agony. 'W-What happened to me...? Where am I?'
Once she got adapted to the pain, the young Spix's macaw proceeded to give a good inspecting look to her surroundings. The first detail to come to her attention was the fact that she was lying down on a bird-sized bed. If she wasn't in such pain at the moment, she probably would've enjoyed the sensation of the soft cushion underneath her back. And the pillow keeping her head in a comfortable position was a welcome addition.
However, for some odd reasons, the bed covers that should usually cover her whole body was pulled down to her legs, leaving her whole torso exposed. Looking down, she could see an avian figure standing on a crate next to her bed. It looked like... an owl. But unlike Apollo, this one's feathers were as white as the snow she played in earlier; not hazel-brown. They made him as beautiful as a winter morning. Plus, if she was to judge him by his size, he was likely a young kid. At the moment, he ran his little wing over her stomach with his two eyes closed.
"Hum... Hi...," she weakly mumbled.
Hearing this voice, the little owl's golden eyes shot open, and he jumped back with a yelp, falling off his crate, and rushing to go hide behind a table leg. Jewel got the chance to inspect the room she was in. Apparently, it was inside a building with no real decoration outside the bed she was currently lying on, the crate next to it, and the table the kid went to hide behind. There were some human tools and herbs lying across it. In addition, a window allowed to see the white landscape outside.
The kid peeked his little head from behind the table leg with a shy expression. "... Hi."
In this position, Jewel got to see an odd feature of the young owl: a little pink gem was lodged in the middle of his stomach where the belly button would be. In addition, a purple bow tie was wrapped on his neck feathers. Even though she didn't meet many owls before, Jewel could tell this was unusual for a bird. "W-Who are you? Where am I?" she asked.
"I can answer that."
Jewel turned her head toward the entrance door she failed to notice before to see another owl joining them - a female adult this time. Blu told her about this species one time... a barred owl, she thought it was called. Her feathers were grey with dark striping on the underside and whitish spotting on her wing coverts. Her beak, talons and eyes were all golden-yellow. Overall, Jewel would describe her as a beautiful, tall woman.
"Don't be afraid; you're in no danger," the barred owl assured. "My friend found you unconscious in the snow and decided to bring you back here to see if you were okay," she explained just as her little white friend came at her side so that she could pull a wing on top of his head. "My name's Amelia. And this little guy is Alex."
"I'm Jewel."
"Nice to meet you, Jewel," the little white owl named Alex politely said with waving his wing at Jewel, a small smile on his black beak.
As Jewel gave him a nice smile, Amelia went to grab a wooden pot containing a liquid on the table and went to give it to Jewel. "Here, it won't taste good, but try to drink it all. It's gonna help make you feel better."
Taking the pot, Jewel briefly examined the greenish liquid that made her frown a little. Bracing herself, she brought the pot up to her beak and proceeded to drink. A gag immediately escaped her beak as the horrible taste was expected, but still not welcome. She nonetheless forced herself to drink it all.
"You're lucky Alex found you out there; we ran a diagnostic on you and discovered you were sick," Amelia pointed out.
"I-I am?"
"Yup; you have a variation of the Zika Virus," the barred owl explained. "This sickness is very rare - especially for birds. If we hadn't treated you in time, you would've died."
"D-Died?!" Jewel exclaimed, her turquoise eyes widened in fear. "I... I knew I was very sick, but not to that point! Thanks a lot for saving me, Amelia."
The barred owl giggled in amusement at this for some reason. "I'm not the one you need to thank for this, Jewel. Alex is the one who came to your help and made the medicine you just ingested."
Jewel's eyes once again widened in surprise, blinking in disbelief, and looking down at the young owl. "Y-You're the one who dragged me all the way here and made that disgusting drink?" Alex nodded a yes at her question. "But... how? You're so young, and I'm bigger than you."
Hearing this, Alex puffed his feathers out and displayed an insulted expression. "Hey! It's not because I'm small that I can't do anything, okay?! I'm more than capable of doing things on my own! I'm not a baby!"
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Jewel quickly apologized at the annoyed kid, rising her two wings in defense. "My intention wasn't to insult you. If what you say is true, then I'm sure you're an impressive little boy."
This time, a grin formed on Alex's black beak, his cheeks turning red, and his wings attempting to hide it. "If you think calling me impressive is making me happy, that's not the case at all! Why should it make me happy? I already know that I'm a formidable little guy!"
Jewel's mind bathed in complete confusion. First, she underestimated this kid which made him mad, and, now, she complimented him, making him deny the praise? What was wrong with him? "So, what was this sickness you said I had already?"
Alex removed his wings from his face and regained his neutral expression. "The Zika Virus. While I never faced a patient carrying it before, I studied it enough to know how it works and must be treated. This disease is transmittable by mosquitoes and is very common in the equatorial belt from Africa to Asia. Speaking of which, I noticed something." He climbed back on his little crate so that he could give a good look at Jewel. "In 2015 and 2016, there has been a Zika Virus epidemic in Brazil. And Spix's macaws like you aren't native to the United States. So, you must be from Brazil, right?"
"Yes. From Rio de Janeiro, to be precise," Jewel confirmed. "Believe it or not, but I arrived here barely one hour ago with my boyfriend and his teacher."
"Really? And where are they now?" Amelia asked.
Before Jewel could answer that question, violent BOOM! BOOM! could be heard in the other room, like an elephant slamming against a wall. Exchanging confused gazes, Alex and Amelia rushed out of the room and to the entrance one just as the big door got slammed open, hitting the walls violently. Two blue birds carrying swords stepped in, their eyes narrowed into glares.
"Jewel, where are you?!" Blu shouted before pointing his glare toward the two owls. "Where's Jewel?! And don't lie to me; we followed her trail all the way here!"
"Blu! Nightfly! Wait!" Jewel called, pulling herself out of the bed and, fighting through the pain and tiredness, managed to get at the two owls' side to take their defense. "It's okay, they helped me."
A big smile of relief formed on Blu's face. "Jewel!"
Author's note: There, you now know why I was so excited to write this chapter. Because it introduced one of the best OCs I ever created: Alex. As you can see, he's still the kid doctor he was in "The Dynamic Adventure". Cause we already have plenty of adults and serious characters :)
The curry calzone Lazaro cooked for our friends at the start is another recipe from "Food Wars!" which I particularly liked. Seriously, not to spoil anything, but I really think Isami Aldini deserved to end up in the 8 remaining participants with this.
Everything said about the Zika Virus in this chapter is true. Had to do some studies and researches to find an illness that would be suitable for the story I'm writing and, by the biggest luck in the world, I managed to find one that both could be caught by a mosquito and was common in Brazil. I don't think that, realistically, a bird could catch it, but hey, this isn't the kind of story you read for realism. I mean, birds can carry swords in this world XD
I hope you guys are staying well and safe during these times and have merry Holidays in spite of everything. Have fun and may the gods watch over you, always :)