DISCLAIMER: Everything related to Rio is owned by 20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios. I only claim the concept of this story as mine.
After hearing Blu's shout, Jewel was about to rush in and help, but one of the scarlet macaws took the initiative and shot in front of her.
"You guys stay here. I'll go help him out."
Both Jewel and Santiago nodded, Jewel reluctantly, as Diego flew into the hole to join Blu. A few seconds later, the two birds appeared at the opening with Carla between them, thankfully awake, but looking like she was barely clinging to consciousness.
Jewel's eyes widened as she took in the state of her daughter. She looked to be about in the same kind of state that Tiago was when Nico and Pedro found him, at least according to how the two of them described it. Even then, it still hurt her to see her like this.
Jewel immediately flew down and landed inside the tree as Blu and Diego moved Carla backwards to accommodate her. She nearly made a move to hug Carla, but considering she didn't exactly know what kind of injuries her daughter had, she settled for a light squeeze.
"I'm so glad you're okay, Carla."
"M-mom?"
"Just rest for now, sweetie. We'll get you back to the sanctuary as soon as we can." said Blu.
"Thank you for finding me." said Carla weakly before closing her eyes and passing out.
Blu and Diego carefully set Carla down, and when Santiago joined them, the four birds began to try and figure out their next course of action.
"So, how are we gonna get her back to your sanctuary? She isn't exactly the lightest bird around." asked Diego.
Although slightly miffed about Diego's comment, Blu chose to ignore it and contemplate an easy way to get Carla home. Before he could figure one out, though, Jewel stepped in with an idea of her own.
"How about while one of us looks after Carla, the rest can look around the area and find something that we can use to carry her home? Maybe we could use a leaf or something."
"No offense, Jewel, but are you sure leaves would work? I've heard that they aren't exactly suited for heavy lifting." said Blu.
"Maybe if we get a couple of leaves and put them together, it might work out." said Santiago.
Blu still had his doubts about leaves being able to carry Carla all the way back to the sanctuary, but he decided there was no real reason not to give it a shot, so while Jewel took care of their daughter, he and the two scarlet macaws flew out of the tree and started collecting leaves.
A few minutes later, there was a pretty decent pile of leaves next to Jewel.
"Here's some leaves. So…what do we do now?" asked Diego, looking at Jewel curiously.
Jewel didn't answer immediately, as she began digging through the pile, eventually grabbing a few of the biggest leaves and handing them back to the others.
"Stack these on top of each other and we'll put Carla on top of them. With the four of us working together, we should be able to get her back home."
Not wanting to waste any more valuable time, Blu decided to follow along with Jewel's plan despite his reservations, and he and the scarlet macaws stacked the leaves into one and helped Carla on top of them.
However, when Jewel went over to check out their progress, she found that her original plan wasn't going to work out so well considering the shape of the leaves, so she had to improvise.
"Alright, change of plans. I don't think we're all gonna be able to grab the leaves, so Blu and I will do the carrying, while you two are gonna stay close to us to make sure she doesn't fall off." she said as she looked at Diego and Santiago.
The two scarlet macaws nodded, and the four birds took their positions, with Blu and Jewel grabbing the pile of leaves the best they could.
"You ready to go?" asked Blu as he looked back towards Jewel.
Unfortunately, Jewel was having a bit of difficulty keeping her talons gripped around the entire pile, so she was beginning to feel a bit nervous.
"Ready as I'll ever be." she said before quickly readjusting her grip.
Blu sighed, noticing the look on Jewel's face, but as much as he wanted to point it out, he knew that they needed to get Carla back as soon as possible, so he kept quiet.
"Now or never." he said to himself, before signaling for everyone to lift off, which they did as they headed out of the tree and back towards the sanctuary.
Although Nico and Pedro both agreed that it wasn't very likely that they would be able to find two of the kids in the same area of the forest they were in, they knew that they couldn't just stay at the sanctuary and disappoint Blu and Jewel, so they continued their search.
Since they had some helpers this time around in the form of two of the scarlet macaws that they found out were named Alejandro and Carlos, this allowed them the opportunity to spread out a little more and cover more ground.
After searching for a while and unfortunately coming up with nothing worthwhile, Nico flew over to each of the other birds and signaled for them to join back up, which they did, and they landed on a nearby tree branch just as Nico began to speak up.
"Any of you guys think we should call it a night? I'm not finding any signs that can point us to either of the girls."
"Me neither. With how we found Tiago, I doubt that either of them could really have gotten too much further than he did."
Nico looked over at the two scarlet macaws, and they both shook their heads, having not seen any clues either.
"You guys think we should maybe join up with one of the other groups? We might have better luck finding something then." said Carlos.
"You know, that's not such a bad idea, but I think we should at least check with Blu and Jewel to see what they think." said Nico.
Both Carlos and Alejandro shrugged. Before the four of them could head back to the sanctuary, Pedro suddenly spotted something out of the corner of his eye, and he turned to face it, trying to see what it was as it came closer.
"What in the world is that?" he said to himself as he took in what appeared to be four birds carrying a fifth under them.
Curious, Nico headed closer to Pedro and looked in the same direction the cardinal was looking in.
"Is that…Blu and Jewel's group?"
Pedro squinted as he tried to make out the figure, but he didn't really need to, as the group was now close enough for them to see clearly, and it was in fact Blu's group in question.
"Wow, I didn't realize that we ended up this far left." said Nico, before lifting off to catch up to them.
Pedro and the two scarlet macaws managed to catch up a few seconds after Nico, and the group finally rejoined Blu and Jewel's group not too long after to finally see what the four of them were carrying.
"Hey, you guys found Carla!" said Nico.
Both Blu and Jewel were nearly out of breath from the distance they flew combined with the weight they were carrying, but the both of them soldiered on. Neither of them spoke, though, as they preferred to concentrate on carrying Carla, so this left Diego to speak to them, as he was the closest.
"Yeah, we found her not too long ago and started carrying her back to the sanctuary using these leaves. They're actually holding pretty well, surprisingly enough."
"So there were no problems?" asked Nico.
"Well, she did almost fall off a couple of times, but Santiago and I were there to keep her steady."
"That's good. Hey, we're planning to head back to the sanctuary as well, so I guess we'll join up with you guys."
"No luck finding Bia?" asked Blu, catching everyone off guard due to him suddenly speaking.
"No, unfortunately. I'm beginning to think that Bia probably isn't any further away from the sanctuary than Tiago or Carla, so there's probably a good chance that we're probably not gonna find her in our section." said Pedro.
Blu didn't answer immediately, as he seemed to be lost in thought for a moment.
"Alright, let's just get Carla home, and we'll figure something out then."
As Blu and Jewel continued to carry their daughter home, both Nico and Pedro couldn't help but look worried, partly because of the state of Carla, but also partly due to how worn out Blu and Jewel looked. It seemed to the two of them that they were flying for a while.
"Hey, do you guys want any help carrying her?" asked Nico.
"No, I think we'll be good. Besides, I think I see the sanctuary up ahead." said Jewel from the back.
Nico looked in front of him and saw that the sanctuary was indeed coming up fast. Still, he couldn't help but feel nervous about Blu and Jewel, so he kept an eye on them as they headed towards the tree where Tiago was, setting Carla down near him and finally collapsing in exhaustion.
As the four scarlet macaws checked on Blu and Jewel, Nico and Pedro decided to check up on Carla and see how she was. After a close inspection, they found that outside of some bruising, a multitude of scratches, and a large gash across her cheek, she seemed to be largely unhurt, which was a relief to the two birds.
Before they could go any further with taking care of Carla, the two of them noticed Blu and Jewel slowly trying to make their way over to see Carla. Taking the initiative, Nico walked forward and blocked their path.
"Hold up a sec, you guys."
"Let us through, Nico. We want to see our daughter." said Blu, giving the canary a look to try to intimidate him into letting them through. However, Nico stood firm.
"You guys can barely stand! Go get some rest, and you can come see her later."
At another look from Blu and Jewel, Nico made a move to reassure them.
"Don't worry, we'll take good care of her and Tiago. Besides, it's getting late anyway, and I think that she needs rest as well."
Reluctantly, the two of them agreed, and they flew out of the tree to head back to their place and get some rest. Nico, meanwhile, took a quick look outside and found out that it was indeed starting to get dark.
"Man, I hope Rafi and Roberto's group gets back soon." he said to himself before heading back inside to rejoin everyone else.