DISCLAIMER: Everything related to Rio is owned by 20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios. The only thing that I claim as my own is the concept of this story.
Even with the newly acquired help of the scarlet macaws, the search for Bia and Carla hasn't been going any faster than it was before. But that didn't stop them from trying.
As Blu and Jewel led their new teammates towards the area that they were searching before, Blu spoke up, looking back towards the other macaws while he also kept his attention on the road.
"I think that we might be on the right track towards one of the kids' locations. Jewel and I found something that belonged to one of them last night."
"So, what do you want us to do, then?" asked one of the scarlet macaws, giving Blu a look.
Blu didn't answer immediately, as he quickly tried to formulate a plan. Thankfully, he didn't really have to, as Jewel suddenly spoke up.
"What do you say we all split up and divide our section of the jungle between the four of us?"
The four of them decided to land temporarily before beginning the search, and as Jewel looked around at the three males, she saw that the scarlet macaws seemed to be okay with it. As for Blu, though, she noticed the worried look on his face, and she knew that she needed to allay his fears.
"Look Blu, I know that you're worried about us getting separated and all, but we're not gonna get anywhere if we're all cramped up together, especially now that there's four of us in this group."
Blu sighed.
"Alright, let's split up, but don't go too far from each other. I'd like to have everyone on standby just in case something happens to one of us."
Blu gave an involuntary shiver as he remembered the jaguar nearly getting them.
The four birds spaced themselves out along the clearing they were in, before each of them lifted off, heading forwards as they kept an eye out for any sign of the missing children.
It didn't take long until one of the scarlet macaws spotted something, and he started yelling as loudly as he possibly could to catch everyone's attention.
Somehow, despite the large distance between the four birds, everyone showed up, out of breath.
"What? Did you find something?" asked Blu.
Rather than answer, the scarlet macaw pointed towards the ground as he hovered in the air. The four birds quickly landed down on the ground, and Blu and Jewel took a closer look at the area.
"Is that…blood?" asked Blu as he began to get nervous.
Although Jewel was worried as well, she knew that Blu's neurotic nature would only cause him to panic more easily, so she remained calm and attempted to look on the bright side of the predicament.
"Uh, just because there's blood doesn't mean that something bad's happened. Tiago didn't look so good when Nico and Pedro found him, but he's gonna be alright. Why would this be any different?"
"Well, there is a good chance that there might be something worse than a big cat roaming around here." said Blu.
"You're not helping."
Blu wisely kept his beak shut, before suddenly noticing that there was more blood heading off in another direction.
"This looks like a trail. Maybe if we follow it we might find Bia or Carla!"
"Good idea! Let's go!" said Jewel.
However, before they could lift off to follow the trail, Blu held up a wing to stop them, as he turned towards the scarlet macaws.
"You know, in all of this craziness, I don't think I ever got your names."
The two scarlet macaws started, not expecting to be asked this kind of question in the middle of a search and rescue operation.
"My name's Diego. Nice to meet you."
"Santiago."
"Great to meet you two. Now let's start following this trail while we have the chance." said Jewel.
While she tried not to be too rude to the scarlet macaws, Blu could see that she looked like she wanted to get moving, and he agreed with her sentiments.
"Alright, you guys. We should get moving."
The four birds quickly lifted off, and they began to follow the trail of blood, hoping that it would lead to something good.
Back with Rafael and Roberto's group, they also had the same idea as Blu and Jewel…sort of.
Unluckily, Felipe decided to join their group, so Roberto was unfortunately having some difficulty in keeping his focus on the mission. He wanted to be able to trust the leader of the scarlet macaws, but most of his young life was spent in battle with them, so switching right to being friends with them was kind of difficult.
Even when the group agreed that splitting up was the best course of action for their search, Roberto really wanted to keep an eye on Felipe and make sure that he wasn't going to do anything. Hopefully this would put his fears to rest and he would be able to finally get along with the scarlet macaw.
So, as they began their search through the trees, Roberto was glancing off to his right every so often, quickly trying to spot Felipe amongst the undergrowth.
From the amount of times he was actually able to see him, Roberto couldn't see any wrongdoings, which alleviated some of his concerns, but with the barely second-long glimpses, he knew he wouldn't be able to get much.
Unfortunately, with Roberto busy watching Felipe, that meant that his focus wasn't completely on the path in front of him, and that ended up biting him in the butt, as his talons clipped a tree branch, sending him off course and into the ground, rolling a few times as he landed.
Roberto blacked out for a few seconds from the shock of the landing, but when he woke up again, he slowly picked himself up and checked himself for any injuries.
Thankfully, outside of a few scrapes and some soreness in his side, he was relatively alright. Before he could lift off again and pretend nothing happened, Felipe suddenly landed next to him, a worried look on his face.
"Are you alright? You clipped that tree pretty hard, there."
Roberto considered just brushing it off and pretending like nothing really happened, but the genuine look on Felipe's face made him reconsider. That, and him being scratched up probably wouldn't work any more convincing.
"Um…just a lapse in concentration. Don't worry, I'll be fine."
"You sure?"
Roberto nodded, but Felipe knew that there was something going on, and the scarlet macaw sighed heavily.
"Look Roberto, let me level with you for a minute."
Mentally, Roberto sighed as he realized that he was getting another lecture, but he listened intently to what Felipe had to say.
"I know that we've had our differences in the past. You know…petty squabbles here, other arguments there. But I'm past that. As I've said before we left, I've realized how stupid it was to be arguing over simple things like food and land when we can work together."
Roberto opened his beak to interject, but Felipe held up a wing to stop him.
"I know what you're about to say. Land and food are important things that we all need to continue to survive, but I don't want to do anything that could lead to your species or mine being wiped out due to the lack of either."
By this point, Rafael and the other macaw, whose name they would later find out was Rodrigo, joined the two of them.
"What's the hold up, you two? We kind of need to get going while we still have daylight!" said Rafael, annoyed.
"Sorry about that. We were just having a bit of a moment here." said Felipe before lifting off and leaving Rafi and Rodrigo to look at Roberto in confusion.
The spix macaw simply shrugged, deciding that now wasn't the best time to be sharing his current emotional state when they were in the middle of searching for the kids. He was in fact quite conflicted, though, as his hatred for the scarlet macaws was beginning to wane, but not by much.
As the three birds lifted off to resume looking, Roberto sighed inwardly, wondering if he had the right idea to not trust Felipe and the other macaws.
Unfortunately for Nigel and his group, finding the sanctuary proved to be much more of a difficult task than he thought it would be. With nothing happening, the cockatoo was beginning to get bored, and he decided to take a nap for a moment.
He quickly shifted his position on top of Charlie as the tamandua continued to walk through the jungle, lying down on his back and shifting himself some more until he believed that he wouldn't fall off. Even with Charlie moving at a pretty slow pace, Nigel didn't want to take any chances.
Before closing his eyes, Nigel turned his head to face Gabi, who was perched on top of Charlie's hat.
"I'm going to take a nap for a little while. Wake me when we reach the sanctuary."
Gabi simply nodded, and Nigel turned back around, getting himself as comfortable as he can before closing his eyes.
Back with Blu and Jewel's group, they continued to follow the blood trail which seemingly had no end, as the blood remained just about the same size with each drop they saw.
Unfortunately, this fact led to many different horrible scenarios popping up in Blu's mind. As much as he tried to forget them and focus on following the trail, they continued to show up, and he knew that he needed someone to confide in, so he turned his head towards Jewel, who was flying next to him.
"I don't like this, Jewel. I really don't."
Jewel sighed.
"I know, Blu. We just need to pick up the pace. I can't imagine what kind of state whoever made this trail is in right now."
"I can." Blu said to himself, hoping that Jewel didn't hear.
Thankfully, after a few more minutes of following the trail, the blood pools began to dry up, and they knew that they were getting close. The four birds sped up, flying at an almost frantic pace, before finally reaching the end of the trail and finding themselves in the middle of a path with a couple of trees scattered around the area.
Not wanting to waste any time, Blu quickly gave his orders.
"Spread out and start searching around the area. Whoever this is can't be too far off."
Everyone did as they were asked and began combing the area, looking through practically anything they could get their hands on. Suddenly, when Diego looked into a hole in one of the trees, he noticed something blue inside and he quickly turned to face the others.
"Hey guys, I think I found someone!"
Blu, Jewel and Santiago went over to meet Diego, and after the four of them traded looks, Blu silently volunteered to be the one to look inside.
He landed on the edge of the hole and peered inside, trying to make out the figure inside. However, with it being so dark, he couldn't really see, so he turned back towards the others.
"Does anyone have a light or anything?"
The two scarlet macaws shrugged, and Jewel shook her head, so Blu sighed and slowly made his way towards the figure in the back, somehow able to make out the figure as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. And when he did, his eyes widened in shock. He quickly turned back towards the opening once again.
"You guys, come quickly! She's here!"