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.
As expected, trying to find Bia was a lot tougher than expected, mostly because of the fact that they now had to search through almost the entire jungle to find one bird.
Still, everyone was determined to bring her back home, so as the search party flew into the jungle and split off into their normal groups; it was with a renewed vigor.
As Rafael and Roberto's group flew off towards their section of the jungle, Felipe decided to speak up and ask what everyone wanted to know about their next course of action.
"So, where do you think we should start? Do you guys want to cover what we already searched through again?"
Roberto thought for a moment.
"No, I don't think we really need to. There might be a good chance that Bia could be roughly in the same state as the other kids, so I doubt that she'd have moved much."
Rafael glanced over at Roberto, a worried look on his face as he tried not to think about what could have happened to her.
Before things could get any more down within the group, Felipe inserted himself between the two of them, intending to try and cheer them up.
"Come on, you guys! There's no reason to be so down! She's probably hiding in a safe place somewhere. If she's not perfectly fine, she's at least not going to get worse."
Both Rafi and Roberto winced, not liking how Felipe worded his last sentence. Felipe, however, completely missed it.
"What? Did I say something wrong?" he asked, confused.
"Never mind. Let's just keep going." said Roberto.
Although Felipe had a thought in the back of his mind that he may have inadvertently made things worse, he decided to worry about it later and focus on the task ahead.
So, once they finally made it to where they left off, they spread out and began searching. This time, though, they knew that they had to keep an eye on the time. None of the four of them wanted to see what Blu or Jewel would do if they missed nightfall again.
With Pedro back at the sanctuary looking after the kids, Nico ended up having to lead his group with one bird short, so covering the entire area assigned to them proved to be a little more difficult than they expected.
After some discussion between them, though, they decided to trade off covering multiple sections so that they hopefully avoid missing any kind of clues as to the whereabouts of Bia.
So, as they continued to fly through the jungle while keeping in earshot with each other for trading spots, they all kept a close eye on the area around them, hoping to see anything that would put them on the right track.
However, there was no sign of anything around them, and it was beginning to make Nico question whether there was still a point in continuing to look through their section.
"Hey guys!" he called out towards the others.
Alejandro and Carlos looked over to see Nico aim towards a tree branch off to his left. Curious, the two of them followed Nico and landed on the tree branch next to him.
"What's up, Nico? Something on your mind?" asked Carlos.
Nico sighed, admittedly not wanting to believe that his hunch was right. However, the evidence was beginning to mount, so he turned towards the two scarlet macaws.
"Look you guys, I'm sure you've probably noticed that we haven't seen anything that resembles a clue since you guys came with Pedro and I. Heck, I haven't seen anything since the two of us found Tiago! I'm beginning to think that Roberto may be right, and Bia might be in their area of the jungle."
The two scarlet macaws paused as they thought about what Nico said.
"So, if you're right and Bia's not in this part of the jungle, then what? We can't just join one of the other groups." said Alejandro.
"Yeah, Blu and Jewel will probably be pretty angry if we ditch our section, even if we have a good reason to." said Carlos.
Nico sighed.
"Alright, if you think it's best that we all stay, we'll stay. Let's just try and search through as much as we can today. Hopefully Blu and Jewel will agree with us that there's no chance Bia could have flown too much further away."
Both Alejandro and Carlos shrugged.
"I don't see any problem with that plan. How about you, Carlos?"
"Nope. I don't really know how we're gonna explain it to them, though."
"Don't worry. We'll figure it out." said Nico as he lifted off of the tree branch.
The two scarlet macaws joined him a few seconds later, spreading out once again as they went back to what they were doing before.
As with the others, Blu and Jewel's group were having a difficult time finding anything that could be a lead towards Bia. Obviously, though, they knew coming in that finding her was going to be even more difficult considering the large amount of space to cover.
So, as they continued to search through the area, none of them spoke, preferring instead to concentrate on looking around.
However, the silence didn't last very long, as Santiago suddenly called out from his end of the search area.
"Hey guys, I think I see something!"
The other three birds immediately stopped in their tracks, heading over to join Santiago, who was focused on a tree to his right. Blu attempted to look in the direction where Santiago was looking as he tried to see what he was looking at, but it just looked like a normal tree to him.
"So…what are we looking at?" asked Blu, confused.
Santiago gave Blu a strange look before realizing that he may not have been clear. Flying closer to the tree, he pointed out what he was looking at.
"You see that chunk taken out of that tree?"
Blu looked closer and indeed found a small chunk taken out of said tree. At first he wondered how he could have missed it, but then he saw that it still blended into the tree quite well, which was odd.
"Yeah, I see it. How does this apply to our current predicament then? It could have easily been anything that made that mark."
Santiago paused, realizing that he didn't really think that far ahead when proclaiming the scratch as a clue. However, once he was able to look around the area near him, he found that there was a line of paw prints leading off towards the right, as well as a large number of bushes that looked like they were pushed out of place by something moving through them.
Satisfied that he may be on to something, Santiago turned back towards the others.
"Okay, I'll admit that the chances are a bit low that Bia may be involved with whatever happened here, but I'm beginning to think that this line of prints may be here because something was being chased."
As he spoke, Santiago pointed towards the prints, giving the three other birds a chance to get a good look at them. However, instead of immediately following the prints, Blu and Jewel traded looks.
"Do you think we should try to follow these? They go into Nico and Pedro's section, and they might have seen these." said Blu.
Jewel paused to think for a moment before answering.
"Well, we've got to take any chance we can get in case it might lead us to Bia. I say we go."
Blu looked over at Diego and Santiago, who nodded, signifying that they were okay wherever they wanted to go.
"Alright then. I guess we should start following these."
The four birds began following the tracks laid out in front of them, spacing out as far as they could to not bump into each other, while at the same time close enough so that they could all see the tracks.
Even though Nigel and Gabi weren't part of the group searching for Bia, unfortunately for them, they still haven't gotten anywhere in their attempt to find the spix macaw sanctuary. It was even getting to the point that the constant silence was starting to wear on Nigel's nerves.
As for Gabi, in an attempt to alleviate her boredom, she wanted to try and carry on a conversation with Nigel. So, as she turned towards the cockatoo, she found that he was aimlessly sprawled over Charlie's back as the tamandua continued walking in a single direction.
Frankly, with the position Nigel was in, it was a wonder that he was still staying on.
After clearing her throat, Gabi attempted to catch Nigel's attention.
"Um…Nigel?" she said meekly.
To her surprise, instead of simply answering her, Nigel immediately whipped around and stared at her angrily.
"What?!"
Taken aback, what she was planning on saying next completely disappeared from her mind, and she could only stare blankly at Nigel.
Thankfully, though, Nigel soon realized what he was doing. He sat up on Charlie, nervously coughing as he tried to calm himself down. Eventually, he did, and he turned towards the frog in front of him.
"Apologies for snapping at you, Gabi. Constant silence can really get to me sometimes."
Relieved that she hadn't done something bad, Gabi smiled brightly.
"Oh, it's no big deal, Nigel. I'm just glad that everything's alright."
Nigel paused, clearing his throat once again before speaking.
"So, uh…what was it that you wanted to talk to me about?"
Even though Gabi didn't really want to talk anymore with how awkward the conversation has gotten, she decided just to go ahead and do it. However, she had to think for a moment to remember what she was going to say originally.
"Um, how's the weather for you?"
The flat stare Nigel gave her told her that probably wasn't the best thing to ask considering it's only either rain or sun in the jungle.
"Never mind."
Sighing, Gabi turned around, intending to lie down within Charlie's hat, when she suddenly noticed a small group of birds fly past them.
Initially, she wondered if she was seeing things at first, but when she remembered barely catching the fact that two of the birds were blue, she knew there was something good going on.
Excitedly, she turned back towards Nigel, who looked practically bored.
"Nigel, I think I saw the blue bird you were looking for!"
Nigel clearly didn't believe her, but he decided just to follow along with her, considering there wasn't really anything better for them to do. Sighing, he sat up on Charlie and faced forward.
"Which way did they go?"
"That way!" said Gabi as she pointed towards the right.
Kicking Charlie in the side, Nigel aimed the tamandua towards the right. As Charlie sped up, Nigel frankly was hoping that Gabi was right. Anything would be better than aimlessly riding through the jungle.