Disclaimers: I don't own Rio but I do own the villain of this story. I don't own: Rico the black hawk, Arlene the Scarlet Macaw or Rapper the red macaw. They ALL belong to their original authors'.
Unleashing the monster within.
Everything had become electrifying and intense as the group of four recently-captured birds simply waited out their fate.
The hawk, two macaws, and toucan simply stood about the cage with very dampened moods and downhearted expressions worn on each one of their beaks. It had been a few minutes (but it felt like an eternity) since the group had been captured by the ruthless maniac known as Dr. Pablino, and they were all fearful about what would happen to them and where this apparent madman was taking them.
They stared out through the bars of the cage and watched as they passed along through lonesome streets and narrow straits where the amount of people diminished as each minute passed and each route was taken.
The uncomfortable silence was shattered when loud squawks started to sound, a certain scarlet macaw was going absolutely insane in her confinement.
She roared like some beast.
"LET US GO, YOU FREAK OF NATURE!"
Arlene wouldn't stop fidgeting and refused to keep still. She squawked viciously, thrashing about in the cage that she, Jasmine, Rico and Carlos shared. She smacked her wings roughly against the thick bars of the cage in hopes to weaken them but was soon deterred when they would not wear down in their strength. She growled in fury, kicking a bar with her talon out of pure frustration.
She didn't even let the pain of her stubbing her toe interrupt her unbridled rage...
The scarlet macaw stomped about in the cage, behaving like a stampeding rhinoceros, ignoring Rico and the chicks existence for only a few seconds before she punched the bars again and glared into the open air in front of her. She folded her wings and sat down in a pout, clearly sulking over her failed attempts to break free of her and the others confinement.
"Hmph!" The scarlet macaw harrumphed, folding her multicoloured wings across her chest and then turning her head to look over at the rest whom were all huddled in the cage, her eyes softened with fear and a worried frown sweeping across her beak.
"What do you think we should do?"
Arlene glanced across the other end of the cage to look at Rico, hoping to get an answer out of him, but he was far too busy indulging himself and gulping down a swig from a little bottle of...something that he just so happened to have clutched tightly in his talon. She couldn't help but feel outright confused and rather annoyed whenever she saw that very bizarre bottle, she even felt a need to sharpen her glare at the black hawk.
Rico swallowed his drink and gulped heavily as he held the bottle up and the tip to his beak, tilting it and letting the unknown fiery hot liquid trickle down his throat as he gulped it down greedily. The black-feathered, bird-of-prey grinned a hint as he felt the blaze of the unknown beverage go down and pleasure his tastebuds with its burning hot sensation.
He could easily compare it to the fires of the underworld.
When Rico finally quenched his thirst for a bit, the black hawk parted the bottle from his beak and put it down so he could look at the scarlet female and smirk at her tauntingly. Only nobody knows what kind of drink that was but he wasn't sharing it with anybody and he silently swore to himself that should anyone touch his precious bird-sized bottle then they'd have to pay the price for it.
With their lives.
Arlene couldn't bother about that, though, but she pointed at the black hawk with an accusatory wing and raised a brow at him. She had one question on her mind right now and, although it was a very legitimate inquiry, she couldn't help but give him a blank stare as her posture deflated like a balloon.
"...Where did you get that?"
Rico was silent since he didn't really respond immediately. He simply picked the bottle back up in his talon and downed the unknown drink and he was leaning heavily against the side of the bars to keep himself standing on his other talon and to prevent the likeliness of toppling right over. His own expression morphed into a confused glance as he shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know actually."
Judging by the fact that he kept on drinking, regardless of what it was, shown that he didn't care either.
Jasmine, in the meantime, just couldn't help but feel her insides become cold as a shudder took over. Ever since she saw her father's new appearance she couldn't help but feel horrible and very confused -was this man responsible for her father's new form? How was it even a logical, physical possibility? Was there something she was missing, was there something she didn't know about this man?
Then a terrifying thought shot through her mind; it was a thought that made her tense up and her feathers ruffled, her eyes shot wide open and her pupils shrunk into tiny panicked dots as a sharp gasp darted straight from the bottom of her lungs and her whole posture tightened up into a bundle of knotted and bunched up muscles.
"Oh no, are we next!?"
Then the young female almost jumped when she felt a black wing wrap around her.
She glanced around and found herself staring into a pair of familiar yet comforting jungle green eyes that made her heart skip a beat, the small Spix macaw felt her own hazel brown eyes soften at the young toucan chick and she instantly felt much calmer.
Carlos smiled, even though he was a fearful wreck on the inside, but he simply wanted to calm the understandably shakey blue macaw. He may have not comforted many in his young life, even though he was the oldest out of 18 siblings, the hybrid toucan felt a need to try and console her. He heaved a heavy sigh as he tried to keep himself calm, for her sake.
"Hey, It's going to be alright..."
Jasmine didn't reply for a few moments, trying her best not to let her terror show. Her brown eyes widened in their sockets and she tilted her head to one side in order to feign confusion, she swallowed nervously as she did this.
"Wh-Wh-what do you mean?"
Carlos frowned, eyes softening.
"Jazz, I was born into a clan of Seventeen siblings who can sense fear. You don't have to hide your emotions from me..."
The blue macaw moaned quietly, she knew very well that she couldn't lie to the keel-billed/toco toucan hybrid but she hated showing how frightened she was because she fretted that it would make her look weak...or weaker then she already felt.
Carlos closed his eyes and held her, trying to soothe her worries. He was afraid of what would happen to them yet he wanted to protect his best friend with everything he had. He didn't want to turn out like Blu but if it would protect Jasmine then he was willing to do anything for her. He had to be brave, just like his father had taught him.
"Don't worry...I'll protect you as best as I can..."
Jasmine couldn't help but pull the weakest of smiles as she felt the toucan's ebony wings wrap around her as he pulled her in for a tight (and friendly) hug with him enveloping her smaller body. She could feel her tenseness melt away a bit as she sunk into the warm and comforting hug, she rested her head on his shoulder and tried not to let her irrational thoughts take control of her fleeting emotions. The rocking of the cage combined with the assuring warmth of her friend's body was enough to start lulling her to sleep and her eyes became heavy with fatigue. After all, perhaps a nap would benefit her...
One thought dominate all the others as she closed her eyes and simply slipped off into a deep sleep in the comforting warmth of Carlos' snuggle:
"Daddy...please help us."
The birds couldn't help but take notice of the fact that their captor seemed all too keen to deliver them unto their destination.
Dr Pablino felt completely overjoyed.
The chubby, baby-faced man wouldn't stop grinning as he walked with the cage tightly gripped in one hand and a pridefully jovial swagger gave him a little bounce in every little step he took. While he was a bit put out that he still hadn't captured his latest creation and just a tad worried that the police would catch on to his "business", he couldn't help but at least smile at the fact that he caught four new specimens. That troublesome male blue macaw had compromised all of his experiments and he was going to continue his "research" with these birds he'd captured and he knew he could easily restart with the little female blue macaw he'd caught.
Especially since, if he was correct in his assumptions, the small one was the daughter of the male he'd caught...he could easily use her to lure the male out of hiding.
The man had been shamed, he'd been betrayed by his best friend long ago, his some of his research had been criticised by the public. Thoughts of revenge flood throughout his mind. He was going to prove all those doubters wrong.
One way or the other.
The man travelled all the way from the city over towards a small area full of overgrown green rainforest plant life and it was a quiet and surprisingly secretive location, it didn't even take too long before he finally arrived at his new hideaway. It was a small hut that was hidden among the foliage of the thick jungles, it may have appeared simple and rather rundown on the outside but on the inside it was a technological marvel. There was lots of machinery that he could use for his procedures and he knew exactly what he could do to accomplish his goals.
"Come along." Dr Pablino smirked down the the birds occupying the cage with wicked intent, "Let us get started..."
The rain came down in buckets as everyone stayed within Tulio, Fernando and Linda's residence.
Linda, Fernando, and the remainder of the Blue macaw family was settled in the home of the owners of "Blue bird sanctuary" and were waiting around for Tulio to return from an outing of trying to ask around about the whereabouts of his old friend Dr. Pablino and probably the whereabouts of the male Spix macaw that was of dire and major importance of the outing; Linda and Fernando were seated on the sofa whilst sipping cups of hot chocolate to try and do something to wait for Tulio to return, young Savannah was sleeping on Fernando's shoulder and Jewel stared longingly out of the window as she just sat there perched on the edge of the ledge of the windowsill.
The female blue macaw was looking out into the dark and rainy thunderstorm outside with pure worry glazing inside of her eyes. It had been awhile and there hadn't seemed to be any sign of Blu and, worse, her youngest daughter whom had also mysteriously vanished! The gears in her head turned constantly as she pondered on where Blu had gone off to, this all started when he just upped and left in the middle of the night.
It was bizarre because that wasn't in Blu's nature -of course his personality was a little on the cowardly side and could be too clever for his own good sometimes but he would never just leave suddenly without a very good reason to do so. Now Jasmine's case was a bit different and Jewel could understand a little better on her end; Jazz and Blu were quite close and so she would have been crushed if he just gone one day without warning.
If Jewel had to guess -Jasmine's disappearance just meant that the small chick had gone out to find her father but there was something that seriously worried her, and that was the fact that a young flightless bird was out in this sort of weather. She had to wonder, why did Blu leave?
It wasn't like him to leave without saying anything...
Her eyes widened when she heard a small voice break her out of her thoughts.
"Mama? When will daddy come back?"
Jewel was startled by hearing the voice and swiftly glanced down at her son, Bobby, whom had apparently flown over to settle down by her side. The poor thing had a worried gleam inside his brown eyes and he frowned worriedly as he rested his head on her side and tried to get some comfort from her, it was a heart-wrenching sight. The adult female couldn't ignore her son's fearful expression, he had a close relationship to his father so of course he'd be worried of his whereabouts and the fact that his sister had gone too wasn't helping in the least.
"Aw, meu bebê, I'm sure your father will come home soon..."
She sincerely hoped that she was right about that, she didn't like lying to her son when she wasn't sure whether this was the genuine truth or not. Her heart was aching without her other half and she feared for the safety of her second born )especially in this harsh weather) but she had to be strong for her other two chicks. Her teal eyes were soft but she couldn't hide the glint of guilt that decided to reveal itself inside her attempt-to-be-reassuring gaze -then the sound of the door opening made her her head raise, the door swung open and Jewel swirled her head around to glance over at the sight of Tulio trudging through the open doorway.
A look of sadness and disappointment plastered on Tulio's face, he was wearing a coat that was absolutely drenched with rainwater. He was so cold that his tanned skin had turned almost blue due to the abnormally low temperature outside -it was strange since it hardly rained so much.
Linda almost leapt off her seat as she hastened to her husband's side.
"Any sign of them?"
Tulio shook his head, hanging it low.
"I'm afraid not. I've asked all around the city streets but nobody has seen any sign of them," he looked up at Linda with worried eyes "I'm afraid that Pablino might have gotten to them already..."
Jewel, too, felt a pang of disappointment and fear hit her in the heart when she heard this. Her baby and her mate were missing and probably feeling very lonesome out in the city. What could she do if even the humans were struggling -she knew that they could only do so much especially in such a dire situation such as this!
Then she had to remember something:
Jewel was a proud female Spix macaw, one of the last ones, and she wasn't one to rely on humans for anything! She refused to just sit and twiddle her feathers and wait for news anymore, she was going to hunt down her mate and find out what has gotten into him and why he hasn't come home to her and their other two children. She had quickly made her mind up.
She would search for them herself is she had to!
Jewel felt a determined glare settle on her beak and she took a deep breath in, psyching herself up for a very reckless decision. Any bird worth their salt knew that flying in such horrific weather was a stupid move but she would fly across the globe if only it would save her loved ones. The female macaw glanced down at Bobby whom only looked back up at her with confusion, then she looked over at Savannah whom also looked back at her with sleepy confusion.
The two confused faces of her babies almost made her heart break in two pieces but she managed a big smile for the both of them. She reached down and nudged Bobby with her beak.
"Be good for me, I'll be back with your daddy and sister...I promise."
Without another word, Jewel made a quick upwards dive and then flapped her wings as fast as she could towards a nearby open window. She was so swift that to every other eye she was naught but a pale blue blur -she ignored as Fernando reacted and got the attention of his adopted parents by calling out to them and pointing out the sudden rogue mother bird. His voice was panicky and his eyes were wide in their sockets, "Linda! Tulio! Look, it's Jewel!"
Linda and Tulio snapped their heads in the direction of the blue blur and but we're only just able to catch a quick glimpse of Jewel barely squeezing through the gap of the open window. They felt their hearts stop dead inside of their chests when they both hurried towards the window and they both saw the female adult disappear out the window and flew off into the eye of the storm. They couldn't help but fear for the female macaw and Bobby and Savannah could only watch in terror as their mother flew away, off on her quest.
Everyone knew what her objective was:
She went off to look for Blu and Jasmine...
A/N: TWO YEARS! I can't believe it's been 2 years since I last updated this. Sorry, everyone, I don't know where that time had gone since it basically flew away from me. I made sure to start my other chapters but I'm not sure when I'll update my Rio stories again, I'm not abandoning them though.
However I am considering cancelling "Bird of a feather" and here's why:
1. It's become less of a story and more of an answering thing.
2. I don't like where the story is headed and I think I could do better.
3. Now that I'm a little more experienced with my Fanfiction writing I am sure I can make a better plot line when it comes to a Rio fic.
Don't worry, though, I have another Rio fic in the works and I'm sure that it will be a lot better. I'm sorry but I just don't like it anymore and I know that I can write better than that. I hope you guys aren't too sad with me. :(
I'll make sure to update this more often.
-Chloemcg