So I've been wanting to write a Rio fanfic for a while now, just so I could give some love to this archive.

((And frankly, it really needs some sprucing up, what with the quality of 90% of the stories on here. Yup, I said it))

Disclaimer: I don't own Rio or any of its characters.

It was twilight, the sun just high enough to be peeking out from over the mountains in the distance, casting a warm, pinkish glow over all of Ipanema. In the jungle, various birds were getting ready to snuggle in for the night, returning back from their food search to feed their families. For those birds who shared their hollows with no one, they chirped softly to themselves, melancholically wishing for a companion someday. All in all, it couldn't get any more peaceful at the moment. However, that moment was soon disrupted when a loud, shrill shriek penetrated the quiet atmosphere and sending quite a few birds scattering.

The scream had come from the mouth of none other than a small, yellow canary in a hollow. He was panicking frantically, being chased around the hollow by fifteen tiny toucan chicks. A red-crested cardinal was laying unconscious nearby, with three other toucan babies jumping on him and pulling at his feathers. A couple of birds flying by outside peered inside to see what the ruckus was all about, but once spotting the fiasco, they immediately hurried on their way. The eighteen toucans were infamous around Rio, due to their relation to their father, Rafael, otherwise known as the King of Carnaval. It was no secret that they were a menace either. One particular parrot had stopped by for a much longer viewing of what was going on.

"DON'T JUST STAND THERE AND WATCH! HELP US!" The canary yelled, eventually taking notice of him.

Instead of assisting, the parrot simply retreated and flew off into the distance, much to the canary's dismay, leaving him grumbling something about how parrots were evil yet stupid.

The catastrophic situation continued for who knows how long until Rafael and his mate Eva entered their home and saw how out of control everything was.

Eva nudged Rafael. "I told you your friends wouldn't be able to handle them."

Rafael cleared his throat, then shouted as loud as he could, "KIDS!"

All eighteen chicks immediately stopped terrorizing their babysitters and rushed over to their parents, and tackled them – or at least tried to. "Daddy! Mommy! You're back!"

Rafael, trying to keep half his children from climbing onto his face and blocking his eyesight, remarked with slight amusement, "Nico, you and Pedro told me you would be able to handle babysitting them."

Nico, trying to regain his breath from zooming around the hollow nonstop, retorted back, "Pedro was the one who said that, man! I had absolutely no say in anything whatsoever!"

"Yeah, sure, whatever you say. Speaking of Pedro, what happened to him?" The bigger bird gestured to the cardinal, who was still passed out.

"Uh, I dunno. Things started out okay at first, but then I guess they got hungry, so Manuel started eatin' our feathers, and the next thing I knew, all of them were chasin' us all around your home, and I think Pedro blacked out around the time Carlos brought up the idea of feastin' on our wings."

Rafael sighed and looked at Manuel, who was now on top of his head. "We still need to have you tested. As for you..." He turned to Carlos, who was tugging on Eva's left wing. "We need to teach you that wings aren't edible. Not for our species, at least."

"You finally convince me that I need to get out of the hollow more often, and I come home to see your incompetent friends suffering from our children," Eva grumbled, suddenly cross.

"Oh, but that was such a romantic date! Come on, beautiful, don't you remember just the two of us, gazing at that wondrous seaside together, with no one to bother us..." Rafael winked knowingly.

Eva tried not to smile at the thought. "Well..."

"And the sunset! Have you ever seen such a wonderful sunset?"

"No, I suppose not..."

"Of course, nothing beats the beauty that you contain, meu amor," Rafael grinned his signature charming grin.

Eva, finally giving up, shyly smiled back, followed by a flirtatious, "Oh, my pudgy papaya..."

"Oh, my banana beauty..." Of course, this was followed up by Rafael dipping his mate and smooching her.

Pedro, suddenly awake, sat up and deadpanned, "Ya know, just by lookin' at this right now, I think I'm starting to understand how ya keep on havin' so many kids, Raffy."

"I thought you were out," Nico muttered.

"Huh? Oh yeah, I forgot you guys were there. You two can go home now," Rafael momentarily stopped what he was doing to dismiss Nico and Pedro, and then resumed his session with Eva.

"Betting ya that there's gonna be a nineteenth by the end of the week," Pedro murmured to Nico as they both left the toucan hollow.

"Nah, Raffy knows better than to make more children. He's always complainin' about his gray feathers."

"Dude, he's been complainin' about 'em ever since he had his sixth. He'd have learned his lesson by now if he wasn't so head over heels in love with his wife."

"Alright, now you're just makin' that sound like a bad thing. Who knows, you've never had a girlfriend before."

"True, but neither have you," Pedro retorted. "Besides, I can settle for all the hot wings over at The Branch. Wanna go?"

"Way ahead of ya." Nico sped off ahead, leaving Pedro blinking at what just happened.

Pedro shook his head and yelled after his laughing friend before going after him, "NO FAIR!"

It was cardinal behind canary for a few minutes, until said canary bumped into something – or rather someone. Once Nico recovered from the impact, he looked up to see who he had collided into. "Oh, hey Blu."

"Huh? Oh yeah, hi Nico." He looked over the smaller bird's shoulder and called, "Hey, Pedro!"

Pedro ceased his flying speed until he halted completely in front of the blue macaw. "Sup, bird? Where's your hot wing?"

Blu frowned in confusion. "My hot wing? You mean Jewel? She's behind me, along with the kids."

"Now all of them are right beside you," Jewel and her children suddenly appeared beside her mate. "Honestly Blu, don't go speeding off like that. I'm hungry too, but you don't see me abandoning my family to find a watermelon to chew on."

Blu grinned sheepishly. "Heh, sorry about that."

"You guys headin' to the market? Me and Nico were just flyin' in the same direction to go to The Branch," Pedro piped up. "Wanna go together?"

"Blu could join us too!" Nico added cheerfully as they began to continue on their way.

"W-What?!" Blu sputtered. "No!"

"That's a good idea," Jewel smiled. "Someone's got to take care of the kids though, so I'm going to have to sit this one out this time around."

Blu shot his mate a scarred and somewhat betrayed look. "Don't I get a say in this?!"

"No," Nico smirked as Pedro grinned deviously.

"I still don't know about this," Blu said tentatively as he entered the club along with his outgoing friends.

Nico rolled his eyes as Pedro exclaimed, "Dude, you've been here before, and you always enjoy it here! What's got your wing feathers all tied up till you can't fly this time?"

"I'm not sure. I just have this gut feeling that it's a bad idea to be here tonight," Blu bit his beak nervously as he watched a red macaw take multiple shots at the bar area.

"Ah, quit bein' neurotic and loosen up!" Nico grinned. "You're always like this, freakin' out over nothin'!"

"Well sometimes that particular gut feeling I have doesn't like to be ignored and is begging everyone to listen to it," Blu snapped, but awkwardly shifted his feet forward, as if he was expecting something to suddenly pop out of the floor and scare the lights out of him.

"There's nothin' to be afraid of here, ya pigeon!" Pedro laughed, going behind Blu and pushing him to go faster.

"Don't you guys have a song to perform tonight or something?" Blu asked irritably.

Nico's eyes widened and he exclaimed to Pedro, "Dude, he's right! I can't believe we forgot all about our new song!"

"We rehearsed so hard for this one too, bro! Let's go up there now!" Pedro and Nico ushered themselves upstage to prepare.

Blu blinked. "Um... You're welcome for reminding you?"

"Alright, guys, I'm setting my talon down. I really need to head back home now," Blu spoke up, trying to drown out the noise of the loud music playing in the background. "Come on, I promised Jewel that I would be home in time to tuck my kids in for bed."

"Spoilsport," murmured Pedro.

"Alright, you're free to go now." Nico shook his head, but was smiling. "If you're really always this skittish, do you need someone to accompany you back?" he teased.

"Ha ha ha, so funny," Blu replied caustically. "You just reminded me, at least one of you has to go back to my hollow with me. You dragged me here, so it's my turn to drag you back."

"I'm the one stayin'!" Pedro said quickly, then darted deeper into the crowd.

"What?! Pedro, wait up–" Nico tried to protest, but Pedro was already out of hearing range. "...Traitor."

"Hm, so the canary's the one who wants to leave? Okay," Blu said innocently and grabbed Nico's wing. "Let's go."

"Hey, wait! Ya don't have to hold my wing for me to go! I can walk and fly myself! Now let go before someone gets the wrong idea!" Nico nervously looked around for any funny looks birds could've been shooting at them right now.

Blu sighed and obeyed. "Fine. Just hurry up."

He continued walking with Nico behind him muttering, "If this is your way of getting back at someone, you're really bad at it."

Once outside, Blu took off, with Nico trailing behind him.

"Hey Blu! Wait up!"

Blu hovered in the air as he let Nico catch up to him. "Sheesh, I know I said I could fly on my own, but that don't mean I can catch up to you from behind! Give this guy a break!"

"No offense, but you most likely couldn't catch up to me because of your s..." Blu trailed off as Nico gave him an intense death stare that could rival with Nigel's own hideous glare. "...S...S... Sand in your eyes."

Nico's expression changed into a smirk. "Nuh uh. I'll have you know that I haven't been at the beach since the day before yesterday."

"Well then I don't know!" Blu cried.

Nico simply shrugged, smirk still on his face, and they continued on their way. All was silent for a while, but the yellow bird finally broke the silence once they entered the jungle.

"Hey Blu?"

"Yeah?"

"Sorry."

"For what?"

"For dragging you to The Branch without your consent. I've been thinking about it for the past couple minutes, and I guess the right thing to do was to ask for your approval first. And I'm not just saying all this so you could let me off the hook," he added before Blu could start making assumptions.

Blu abruptly stopped flying, causing Nico, who had gone behind him again, to bump straight into him. The macaw stared at his friend with wide eyes. "Who are you and what have you done with Nico?!"

Nico frowned. "What?"

"According to my calculations, you've been acting 10% more serious, 50% calmer, and 70% quieter!" Blu pointed at Nico accusingly as if he just committed a notorious crime. "What gives?!"

"Am I supposed to be offended by that?"

"Preferably not."

"Dude, you're acting like I only have one side of me! Like I'm just some kind of literal party animal with no layers underneath!"

"After ten months of knowing you to act all crazy, birds tend to think that you can't behave any differently," Blu mumbled.

"Come on! Pedro's the crazy one here!"

"Both of you act exactly the same, especially when you're together!" Blu paused. "Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen you two separated from each other before now."

"You can only thank yourself for that," Nico stated flatly. "So I admit I kind of have a different attitude when I'm not standing within a 20-foot radius of Pedro. Also, nobody bases percentages off of that."

"You're talking differently as well. You said 'kind of' instead of the usual 'kinda.'"

Nico shot him a deadpan look. "Of course you would be the one to notice that and think of it as if it's a big deal."

"What's that supposed to–"

"Hey, don't you think it's a little too quiet around here?" Nico suddenly changed the subject, taking in their surroundings.

Blu bit back whatever he was going to say to his friend and looked around. Nico was right, it really was quiet to the point where it seemed that there was something fishy in the air. Holding back any worries he could've felt at that moment, he suggested, "Maybe everyone's just asleep."

"No, whenever me and Pedro are coming home late from a night at the club, there's always at least a few birds still up. And it's not even that late right now."

You're acting more concerned than me for once, Blu thought as he looked around once more. When he turned his head back to face Nico, the little canary wasn't there. "Nico?" He better not have ditched me.

Suddenly, Nico shot out from some nearby bushes, his face panic stricken. "SMUGGLERS!" he screamed at Blu. "DON'T JUST STAND THERE! FLY!"

On normal circumstances, Blu would've winced at how strong the tiny bird's lungs were (especially for someone his size), due to his frequent performances at The Branch, but this was no normal circumstance. He and Nico flapped their wings as fast as they could to lose the pursuing humans. One of the men that were chasing them yelled behind his shoulder to a third smuggler, something about how he had spotted one of the last two blue macaws left in the world.

"Excuse me, but have you not heard of the three baby blue macaws the female and I have produced?!" Blu yelled, though he knew full on well that they were just caws to the man, if he had heard him at all.

The two birds yelped as one of the men somehow appeared in front of them, ready to snatch them up. Nico managed to dodge, but Blu couldn't slow himself down in time. The human grabbed him roughly by the neck, but careful not to strangle him. Blu struggled to break free. "You're a feisty one, aren't ya?" the human growled, holding him close to his face.

Blu glared and shot back, "You're lucky I'm not my mate!" With that, he bit down hard on the man's thumb. The human yelped and immediately let go. "Again, you're lucky!" Blu spat out again.

Meanwhile, Blu's near-capture had distracted Nico momentarily, just enough time for the other human being to snatch him up. "Got ya, ya little rascal!"

Before Nico could follow Blu's strategy and bite down on the smuggler's hand, he was shoved in a cage.

"Nico!" shouted Blu. The man who had his finger injured snarled and, taking his chance, grabbed Blu and pushed him in alongside Nico before he could do any harm this time. "Yer gonna regret hurtin' me, ya little avian," he sneered.

Before either bird could react, the cage that held both of them was shoved into an old, tattered, brown sack, where there was nothing but darkness inside.

Uuuuggggghhhhhhhh I don't like the way I ended this, but I can't think of anything better.

So this is the first chapter of my first ever Rio story. I won't be expecting too many reviews or follows or faves or whatever since there aren't that many people hanging around in this archive.

My favorite bird is Nico, in case you haven't caught on to that yet, haha. I've got a fully developed characterization of him and Pedro, along with a full story on how they met, where they came from, how they became such good friends, you get the idea. Expect some revelations about Nico's past in the later chapters.

Now please review! They make me happy :)