Disclaimer: I don't own the characters nor the rights for Vivo, those rights are owned by Sony and Netflix and a few others. I DO own a few characters in this fic, though.

A song of the heart

Thoooooooooom…

A distant crack of lightning sounded from afar.

The rain was coming down in soft bucketloads as the city streets of Las Vegas were softly lit up by lampposts that had stood boldly on either side of the roads that had been left almost deserted except for the occasional passerby that would take a casual stroll by. The thunderclouds were rolling away from the scene and the hammering rain had dimmed into a light drizzle that barely touched them, the atmosphere had this dampness to it that could cut to the bone and it promised sniffly noses and wet shivers.

They had been invited to one final dinner with the initial audition group with Rico Avaro in attendance and they weren't going to waste such an opportunity to say their final farewells before they finally competed tomorrow night —besides, nobody knew who was chosen for the auditions so this was the perfect chance to finally see who was going to be attending the show.

The streets were dark and dreary and the rainfall was coming close to subsiding by the time Gabi, Esteban and Rosa all decided to head out of the hotel whilst dressed in their best clothes;

Gabi had decided to wear a black satin shirt with a long denim skirt that concealed a universal-pattered pair of leggings while she also wore a denim cardigan over her shirt while her hair was tied into a singular ponytails. Her glasses were perched perfectly atop her nose.

Rosa wore a Ruby red dress which was covered in sparkling glitter which glinted beneath the neon lights. Over her shoulders she wore a fluffy long-sleeved overcoat which was as black as the inky clouds that floated overhead. Her hair was undone from its normal topknot bun and was instead blowing freely in the arctic cool breeze with a couple of radiant curls (much to Esteban's happy surprise).

Esteban wore a smoothed ink black tuxedo with matching black trousers while a sleek necktie hung around his neck. His jet black hair was slicked back as though covered in a thin layer of hair gel —It was clear he tried to put some effort into his appearance but had a bit of trouble doing so.

They all looked truly elegant for this final outing for the week before the big event.

Gabi wished Vivo was with them but she knew that it was his last chance to go and see his new friend so she decided to allow him to do so. She kind of wished that she could smuggle her back to Florida with them but she knew that her mum would get really angry if she brought a second wild animal into their home. She couldn't help but flinch at the thought of her mother's angered face being all red and twisted with disappointment.

She shook her head.

Now wasn't the time.

She, along with Esteban and her mum, desperately seeking shelter from the rain, hurriedly made their exit and crammed into the back of the single limousine parked in front of the to get out of the soft downpour of drizzling rain. The long black car was drenched in rainwater which dropped off of the sides and the windshield wiper swept the front window periodically to clear the driver's vision of spatters and waterfalls of water.

The three passengers shuddered and shivered thanks to the weather outside but basked in the warmth of the indoor back passenger seats and proceeded to clip their seatbelts into their slots as they adjusted themselves in the nicely cushioned seats.

Upon clambering inside, the group noticed that this limo was the same was the one before some changes from the previous one they arrived in.

The ceiling was made from crimson red carpeting (instead of the black carpeting like the previous one) and the same little illuminated specks were assigned like speckles of dewdrops on the ceiling and they, too, shone just like real stars twinkling in a pitch black night sky but they changed colours from red to blue to yellow to teal to purple. The luxurious leather seats were facing towards the drivers window (instead of the back) but there were no champagne bottles or wine glasses, and the windows were tinted black which indicated that they were one-way-view windows rather than clear windows.

Things took a turn, however.

The driver slammed his foot down on the pedal as soon as his passengers wore their seatbelts and the limo shot off down the road like a rocket on wheels.

Thankfully the roads were empty of other cars so nobody was endanger.

However, that didn't prevent the passengers from receiving a huge jolt as they launched backwards.

"Ouch!" Gabi cried after feeling her back smack against the soft leather seat "What gives!?"

The chauffeur didn't say anything and Gabi, Rosa and Esteban all spotted a saddened and sympathetic look shining in the driver's eyes when they caught his expression in the cars rear view mirror; he looked somber and rather sullen as if he was well aware that something bad was about to happen and he felt sick to his stomach about it, as if he'd rather be doing anything else but this.

He kept driving, however, without saying a word to even acknowledge his passengers.

The air was becoming harrowing and stiff.

It was so intense that it made Gabi, Esteban and Rosa all feel as though gravity itself was trying to push down on them and squash them while the only sounds they could hear were the beating of each of their own drumming hearts that carried on pounding away in all of their ears and nobody couldn't keep from nervously fidgeting.

Despite the intensity, Rosa's outrage outweighed her fear at that moment.

"What is going on here, why are you driving so fast!? THIS IS THE SECOND TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED SINCE WE GOT HERE AND WE ARE COLD AND WET AND HUNGRY AND THEN YOU DECIDE TO DRIVE SO RECKLESSLY LIKE SOME SORT OF IMBECIL IDIOTA!?"

Gabi and Esteban both stared wide-eyed at a seething Rosa sat in between them, stewing with poorly-controlled rage with steam blowing out of her ears and her face growing redder and redder with her facial features winding tighter and tighter like a spring and it's coil. Her eyes were narrowed into slits which she could have utilised in order to easily put the fear of hell into someone.

If the driver was intimidated by Rosa's outburst then he didn't show it in the slightest, although he did give the most subtle of shudders as he kept driving.

Rosa, still fuming, wasn't done.

"You haven't answered my question! Why are you driving so fast!?" She snapped, spittle flying all over the place.

Still no answer.

Unbeknownst to Gabi or Esteban nor Rosa, the driver grabbed the steering wheel with one hand and reached over to press a single blue button that was right next to the radio on the dashboard. The button was small and round but very easy to spot should one happen to be searching for it individually. Upon locating it with one fingertip alone, he used said fingertip to firmly press the button and it clicked softly as though to let the driver know that whatever mechanism it unlocked was now activated.

Click.

After the click resounded through the back of the limo, the three passengers all froze as they wondered what was happening right now.

Rosa's face had turned a new shade of red never seen before and she opened her mouth to scream some more at the thoughtless driver but was prevented from doing so when something started to happen and her eyes widened in response whilst her rage turned to slight confusion when she happened to look down.

Gabi noticed her mother's eyes drift towards the ground and she felt her heart sink with a mix of dread and confusion which was beginning to morph into fear and horror. Her brain had been racing a mile a minute until now as her mind decided to stall at that moment and she could feel her heart sink even lower. That was when she proceeded to follow her mother's gaze downwards and was surprised to find a small puff of sickeningly green smog begin to accumulate, twine, combine and curl around their feet and it started to rise up.

Gabi also took notice of how there was now a screen that concealed the driver from sight and made it so they were basically trapped in the back of the car.

Her eyes widened and she started to panic.

What was happening?

The purple-haired twelve-year-old looked over at her mum and then she turned to face Esteban, horrified.

They both looked just as perplexed as she did…until the clouds started to rise towards their faces and their minds began to become slow and sluggish as they stared through a haze of green and disoriented eyes which started to have black splotches dot all of their fields of visions; it was as though all three of them were looking through a broken camera with a fading lens.

She didn't know what was happening anymore but she was certain now that this wasn't supposed to be happening and she thought that she and her family were being kidnapped and taken hostage. She was pretty sure that her mum and Esteban were thinking the same thing before they must have passed out from this soporific gas.

Gabi tried to speak but her vision and consciousness was fading fast.

She could only say one thing which she couldn't even hear anymore:

"….Vivo….…."

After the word left her mouth, her eyelids slid shut over her sleepy eyeballs and, unbeknownst to her, she slunk down into a world of pitch black darkness.

She didn't know what was going on but Vivo was safe at least…hopefully.

Meanwhile…

Marie breathed softly as she slept the most comfortably than she had in a very long time. She was very comfortable and she couldn't recall the last time she had slept so well…but she was mildly confused and befuddled when she realised that she was definitely feeling the loss of warmth by her side which was there before she fell asleep.

Her mind froze.

She couldn't feel anything beside her!

Her blinded pale blue/gray eyes flew open and a look of panic and alarm flashed across her face as she realised that Vivo had gone.

Her mind was racing a mile a minute, her eyes were beginning to well up with massive tears and her breathing was quickening considerably as she felt something was wrong. She could feel that something was most definitely wrong and it made her heart begin to gallop in pure panic while her head snapped in every direction while trying not to let the realisation sink in too quick.

Vivo had gone, hadn't he?

That would explain why he wasn't there.

"Vivo?"

Nothing.

There was no response.

"V-Vivo, where are you?"

She couldn't hear a single reply.

Then, with the tiniest twitch of her nose, she inhaled the fading scent of Vivo and her pulse shot up when she detected it; she didn't have the best of eyesight but she did have a brilliant sense of smell and she used it often. Something was wrong and she could sense it —she didn't know how she could sense it but she could and she was determined to find out what happened.

The female Kinkajou was quick to rub the sleep and the tears out of her eyes and she promptly leapt clumsily to her feet.

Marie hesitated slightly before she jumped out of the sheltered area, getting her fur slightly wet in the drizzling rain, and landed on the ground gracefully and on all fours.

She appeared rather catlike before she shook her fur to lessen the dampness that started to cover her and made a dash to where she could pick up Vivo's scent. She stopped in the middle of the empty plaza and sniffed around to see where the scents were strong and where they were weakened. She came to the realisation that there was a different scent intermingling with Vivo's and she knew it was a human's scent.

It hit her like a bolt of lightning.

Humans had taken Vivo!

She kept aimlessly stumbling about the plaza whilst keeping her nose pointed up high to catch a whiff of that scent, her breathing was deep but quick and her lungs felt like a pair of balloons filling up with oxygen. Her back was arched and her legs kept her propped as she kept scuttling around like a squirrel who drank a boatload of caffeine.

Then she stopped.

She caught that scent and it started to lead somewhere.

The female decided to follow it and scurried along as fast as she could, her paws making quick work as she ran as fast as her four legs could carry her. Her tail flew behind her and her as she ran hot foot with her thoughts running wild and screaming at her to follow that scent before she lost it and lost Vivo in the process —her eyes were hardened and had narrowed into aggressive slits both as a means to look through the rainy view and to express her iron-solid determination.

Then she skidded to a halt.

Her eyes widened in terror.

She….She lost the scent!

Her eyes watered a bit as the panic set in…until she caught a newer scent.

She recognised this scent.

It was Gabi's scent.

It was a scent she didn't really want to follow but….did she have any other choice?

The female Kinkajou reluctantly decided it was best to just follow it and she kept running on all fours but with a slower step as she decided to remain cautious just to be sure no human could catch sight of her, she knew the smell had to be Gabi's because it was always combined with Vivo's scent. She wasn't a bloodhound by any means but since she had no sense of sight, both her hearing and her sense of smell had been heightened.

Unbeknownst to her she kept running until her paws hit some pavement and she stopped a second time.

This was done to both to catch her breath and to regather her frayed thoughts.

She remembered the scent to belong to Gabi, that human child that Vivo hung around with; she had a feeling that if she followed it then it would lead her straight to Vivo but there was something wrong with this since she couldn't help but wonder where Vivo's scent was on her?

This was abnormal and she knew it.

She had to get to the bottom of it.

Her eyes widened, however, when she heard the familiar sound of screeching wheels skidding across the asphalt.

Her back flattened and her expression instantly became etched with worry as she remembered what sort of monsters cars could be since she was almost flattened by one mere days ago, she remembered it clearly…but then that was when Vivo came into her life.

Her heart warmed a little upon recalling that fact.

Vivo was the only other Kinkajou she had met before she lost her family, he treated her with compassion and he helped her feel a bit more confident when it came to trying to navigate the world. He didn't treat her any different despite her blindness and he even accommodated it at times —everyone else around her treated her with contempt but not Vivo….he didn't seem to have a contemptuous bone in his body.

Then the female Kinkajou shook her head to herself.

This wasn't a time to start doubting herself, Vivo needed help and she could feel it deep in her bones.

If that Gabi girl was being pulled into this then she was Marie's best thought to finding Vivo too.

Even though the thought of intentionally going anywhere near a car made her hesitate and freeze, she tried her best to ignore that fear because she knew that it was time to swallow that fear for the time being and go rescue the only person who ever shown her kindness…the one who made her dark world so much lighter than before…

Without even thinking about it, Marie was hot on her paws before she, herself, could even register what was happening.

She didn't even have time to properly command her legs to start moving before they did so involuntarily; her heart was racing and her pulse was pounding throughout her entire body as she gave chase with the vehicle. She let her chest heave in and out as she kept running whilst trying to squeeze a little extra adrenaline to carry herself that much closer to the runaway vehicle.

She kept her eyes forwards and started to make her way down the street whilst she tried to keep up with the speeding limousine that was moving further and further away from her. Actually, it felt as though the road in front of her seemed to stretch on and on with no end in sight and it was beginning to get annoying even though she couldn't see it.

The female Kinkajou ran and ran, scampering on all fours as fast as they could allow before she made a literal leap of faith.

She didn't know how she knew but, upon leaping high into the air, she managed to just barely grab hold of the car bumper. She hefted herself on to it and clung on to it for dear life; she wrapped her arms and legs around the long piece of metal attached to the back of the car and coiled it around the edge of the bumper.

Her arms and legs ached and strained as if begging for her to let go but she ignored it.

She squeezed her eyes shut and she breathed shakily as she tried to control the adrenaline pumping through her veins while every bump, every shudder, every movement the car made caused Marie to further wrap her limbs around the bumper in hopes that she wouldn't slide off.

She couldn't afford to let go, she was determined to find and save Vivo.

She didn't know how but she was determined she would.

A/N: Here's a new chapter, everyone.

Sorry it's shorter then the other chapters but I really enjoyed writing this short one, but I have more planned so don't worry.

You guys are awesome and I'll get working on the next chapter.

It seems that we are finally going to see what's going on behind the scenes since Gabi, Rosa, Esteban AND Vivo had all got captured.

Its also 2/22/22!

-Chloemcg