DISCLAIMER: Everything related to Rio is owned by 20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios. The only thing I claim as mine is the concept for this story.

Nigel and Gabi were once again aimlessly riding through the jungle, trying to find Blu so that Nigel could follow through with his plans of revenge.

"I don't understand! We've been searching for hours, and I haven't seen hide nor feather of that blasted bird!" said Nigel, exasperated.

Although Nigel was still focused on eliminating Blu, in the back of his mind he still remembered about what happened yesterday, and his curiosity has not abated in the hours since then.

Rather than give him her usual love struck look, Gabi gave Nigel a slightly annoyed look instead, remembering how many times she attempted to let Nigel know that Blu was there.

"Didn't you know? He was at that audition those other birds were having. You were too busy singing to notice."

Nigel's eyes widened as he realized what Gabi was saying. He quickly pulled back on Charlie's neck, making the tamandua stop as he focused on the frog.

"Are you telling me that I was this close to him, and I didn't even see him?"

Nigel had two of his feathers spaced about an inch apart from each other to emphasize his point. Gabi simply nodded, and Nigel took it pretty hard.

"Oh why must my need to be a star override my other needs?"

Nigel covered his face with one of his wings as he lightly tapped Charlie on the head in despair.

However, as Nigel was busy feeling sorry for himself, Gabi suddenly heard a noise coming from a few feet away.

"Shh! Do you hear that?"

Nigel ignored Gabi at first, but after another, louder shush from the frog, he reluctantly became quiet and listened in.

"I do hear something! Let's go see what it is."

Nigel, now somewhat excited, turned Charlie to face the direction of the sound and began making his way over to where it was.

"Oh my god! Tiago!"

By some miracle, Blu and Jewel's son just happened to be in the bush that Pedro and Nico were currently looking at. Both of them were excited that they finally managed to find one of them, but when they managed to pull him out of the bush and get a good look at them, it wasn't a pretty sight.

Tiago was thankfully still breathing, but his body was covered in scratches, and he also looked incredibly frazzled, no doubt due to the stress he must have been going through over the last day or so since they went missing.

One of his wings was also bent at an angle that made Nico cringe, as he wondered just what happened to make it that way.

Nervously, Pedro leaned towards Tiago and gave him a light shake, hoping that he would wake up. Unfortunately, he didn't, so the two friends had only one option.

"We have to get him back to the sanctuary, and quickly!" said Nico.

"I agree, but how are we gonna fix him up? He looks like a mess, and I highly doubt any of the birds have any medical experience."

Nico paused as he considered what to do.

"What about Linda and Tulio? They can take him back to Rio, and he'll be fixed up no problem!"

"That can work. How are we gonna let them know, though? We're not exactly buddy-buddy with them like Blu is with Linda."

"Well, we'll just leave it up to Blu. Once we get Bia and Carla back, we can get them help all at once!"

Pedro nodded, understanding what Nico was getting at. However, when the canary mentioned the other kids, he suddenly realized something was missing.

"Where are Bia and Carla, anyway? I don't see them."

Pedro and Nico quickly scanned the area, but there was no sign of the two females. Once they returned to Tiago's side, Nico turned towards his friend.

"I'm guessing that they must have gotten separated during yesterday's storm."

"Man, and here I was thinking that we've found them all! Hopefully they haven't gotten too far."

Nico sighed, agreeing with Pedro's comment.

"We'd better get Tiago back to the sanctuary."

Both Nico and Pedro looked at Tiago anxiously, not wanting to cause the small bird any more pain. However, the only option they had to carry him was with their feet, so they reluctantly went to either side of Tiago and lightly grabbed him with their talons, lifting off and flying back to the sanctuary as carefully as possible.

As they flew off, though, a rustling came from another bush next to the clearing, and Nigel, Gabi and Charlie popped out, looking up at the disappearing forms of the other birds.

"Hmm…this is interesting. It looks like that bird's kids are missing." said Nigel, bringing a feather to his chin in thought.

"Do you have any plans to use that against him?" asked Gabi, curious.

"Well, according to what those two birds said, they will be taking the kid to some kind of sanctuary. So, all we need to do is find this sanctuary, and we'll find who we're looking for!"

"Oh, you are such a master at planning, Nigel!"

Nigel gave Gabi a smug look.

"I know. I am."

Nigel sighed before hopping back on Charlie and turning the tamandua around.

"Find me that sanctuary!" he said, pointing forwards.

Charlie didn't immediately start moving, so Nigel was forced to kick him in the side with his foot, which finally got him going as they followed the direction that Pedro and Nico went.

A few miles from where Tiago was found, Roberto and Rafael were busy trying to search their section of the jungle, calling all three of the kids' names.

Rafael couldn't help but be impressed seeing the change that came over Roberto. He was focused entirely on finding the kids, and his attention did not waver one bit. He was definitely grateful to have him along.

Unfortunately, even after searching through what they went through yesterday and starting on a new part of the forest, there was no sign of any of them. The two of them kept at it, undaunted.

After a while, Rafael was starting to get tired, so he got Roberto's attention, and the two of them landed in a tree near them to rest for the moment.

As the two of them perched on the tree branch, taking in the sights of the jungle, Rafael turned towards his partner.

"Hey Roberto, I'm impressed. You really seem to have turned things around since yesterday."

Roberto smiled.

"Really? Thanks, Rafi. Ever since we've had that talk, I've been trying my best to keep my head on straight and focus on what we're doing. By the way…what are we doing again?"

Roberto gave Rafi a look, but the toucan's angry look forced him to immediately back off.

"I'm joking! I'm joking."

Rafael didn't immediately believe him, but the sincere look the macaw gave him made him change his mind.

"So, are you gonna be alright to keep going?"

Rafi paused as he considered whether he was in fact rested. Unfortunately, before he could answer, a loud crack of thunder sounded, making the two birds jump.

"Man, another one? We just had a rainstorm yesterday!"

"Maybe it's just thunder." said Roberto.

"Could be. Let's find some shelter first, just in case it does start to rain."

Roberto agreed, and the two birds managed to find a hole in a tree not too far from where they were standing, hoping that they wouldn't have to wait out a storm for too long.

Thankfully, it was only a light rain, so it wouldn't cost Blu and Jewel any time having to stay in shelter. As they continued to fly through their part of the jungle, Blu couldn't help but sigh in content, turning towards Jewel.

"Man, this rain is actually pretty nice. I don't know why I was so worried about going outside when it's raining."

Jewel gave her mate a questioning look.

"You don't like getting wet?"

Blu's eyes widened, realizing he just blabbed something that he shouldn't have. He nervously cleared his throat, making an attempt to explain himself.

"Well, um…I don't know if you've ever experienced this before, but when it rains, it sounds much louder when you're inside a building than outside. And when you've spent as much time as I did back in Minnesota, that kind of noise can get to you sometimes. Besides, I bet you're not much different. That's why we had to seek shelter during the thunderstorm yesterday."

Jewel couldn't help but chuckle.

"Okay, I'll give you that, Blu. That was only because the rain was much worse then. When it's as light as it is right now, it's not really a huge problem for me."

Blu admittedly wasn't surprised that Jewel had a different outlook on rain compared to him. He gave her a warm smile before returning to focusing on the search.

Unfortunately, it was starting to get dark, so Jewel turned towards Blu.

"Are you ready to head back?"

Blu paused. As much as he knew that it wouldn't be safe to be out in the jungle after dark, he really wanted to at least have some kind of clue to go on. The amount of searching they've done without any clues to the kids' whereabouts was starting to worry him.

"I think we can risk a couple more minutes. It shouldn't be too big of a deal."

"Are you sure, Blu? You've said it yourself. The jungle isn't very safe at night."

"It's only a few minutes. It shouldn't make a huge difference."

Jewel was pretty impressed by Blu's sudden bravado, but the frightened look on her mate's face slightly tempered that feeling. Still, she shrugged, and the two of them continued on.

It was beginning to get difficult for the two of them to see, but somehow Jewel managed to spot something on the ground not too far in front of them.

"Hey, I think I see something!"

Blu attempted to follow the direction of her gaze to find out what she was looking at, but she suddenly went into dive, forcing Blu to quickly flap his wings to catch up with her.

After finally landing, Jewel took a closer look at what she found, which turned out to be a pair of earbuds.

"Look! I think these might be Carla's!"

"Are you sure she didn't leave them back at the sanctuary?" asked Blu.

"Then who do you think would leave a pair of earbuds in the middle of the jungle? Hmm?"

Blu opened his beak for a second before closing it, realizing that he had no answer.

"Do you know what this means? We might be getting close!"

Jewel began calling out for Carla, but Blu, not wanting to attract any predators, immediately went over and placed a wing over her beak.

"Shh! Do you want to attract that jaguar to us?"

Jewel gave her mate a dirty look, but Blu was undeterred.

"Let's head back to the sanctuary. We're on the right track, so we should hopefully be able to find her in the morning."

Jewel reluctantly agreed, knowing that continuing to search for her was only going to lead to more trouble, so the two of them began heading back to the sanctuary at a quicker pace to hopefully beat the sunset.

Thankfully, the two macaws managed to make it back to the sanctuary just before night fell. As they flew in, they were met by the rest of the search party.

"Where have you two been? We were beginning to think a jaguar got to you!" said Rafael.

Blu and Jewel shared a nervous laugh before Blu began explaining himself.

"Well, admittedly a jaguar did almost get us. We got away, though."

The other four birds gave the two of them incredulous looks, but they let him go on.

"We actually decided to hold off on coming back immediately. We were hoping to find some sort of clue about where the kids were."

"Well, did you find anything?" asked Nico.

Jewel held out Carla's earbuds.

"Hopefully she might have dropped them while they were traveling with each other and forgot about it."

Both Pedro and Nico shared a nervous look, which ended up catching Blu's attention.

"Do you know something, guys?"

Nico hopped forward, deciding to take the initiative.

"Well, you see…Pedro and I believe that the three of them might have gotten separated during the thunderstorm yesterday."

"And how do you know that?" asked Jewel, giving Nico a questioning look.

"Because we found Tiago by himself."

Both Blu and Jewel were shocked, not even sure what to think. Admittedly, they were both ecstatic that one of their kids was safe and sound, but the fact that it was only one of them made them even more worried. Jewel quickly shot over to where Nico was standing and grabbed his wing.

"Show us…please. We want to see if he's alright."

Nico didn't exactly feel comfortable showing the two macaws their son with him being in the state they found him in, but he couldn't just refuse. So reluctantly, he sighed.

"Follow me."

The canary flew off, and the rest of the group followed behind him, all in various states of nervousness (except for Pedro, as he already knew) as they wondered exactly what they were going to see.