Chapter 2: A New Line of Work

When the city of Rio was no longer in sight, Nigel landed on a branch, reflecting on recent past events. He lost his job, his fame, his glory, his attention with the ladies, all of it. On top of that, he took the life of a few macaws without any hint of mercy. He didn't feel anything for them then, and still didn't now. "I solemnly swear, anyone that even looks at me in a way that is not to my liking, they will suffer for it! Any living being that crosses my path will face the consequences!"

Nigel heard some rustling in the bushes beneath him. He looked down, expecting to see some more insignificant beings that he would willingly take care of if they even bothered him. But instead of seeing any kind of wildlife animal, he saw another kind of species: humans. Three of them, to be exact, all male and young. They were carrying loads of equipment, although Nigel couldn't really make out exactly what they had with them, for they had far more stuff with them than a normal hiking trip would require. One of them had a lot more equipment on him than the other two, given he was almost three times the size of them. Not because he was strong, but rather fat, thus he had more room on his back to carry stuff. He started to talk. "How much further, Marcel? I'm getting tired and thirsty and all these cages are starting to weigh through!" One of the other two men turned around, presumably this 'Marcel'. He shoved a canteen into the fat one's chubby hands. "Then have a drink, you big girl. Those cages will weigh a lot more once we've got them stuffed full of birds. Now be quiet, we should be getting close any second now. Don't scare them off!"

Cages? Birds? Nigel didn't have to think long to realize what these men were doing. They were poachers, here to capture exotic birds to sell for a profit. "They better not come after me. I won't allow them to capture me, and they'll pay dearly if they even try." However, he was intrigued, and followed them as they moved on.

As the chirping and squawking of several birds got louder and louder, the men moved slower and quieter. Nigel flew a bit before them, investigating the sounds before the men could see where they were coming from. Poking his head through the leaves, he could see dozens of beautiful colorful birds, all minding their own business. He wondered if he should warn them they were in peril, but then remembered his oath he swore to himself a while ago. Instead, he decided to help the poachers if need be.

The humans arrived below him. They ducked behind a bush, out of sight of the clueless birds, and started to unpack their equipment. Cages, nets, fishnets, everything needed to jump out and return home with a large bounty. Cages were camouflaged, and fruit and seeds planted inside to lure the birds in. Once they had everything in position, they were getting ready to make their move. Marcel waited patiently until the majority of the birds was in those cages, and all three of them had nets ready to catch any birds that made a break for it. He then proceeded to pull on a string, which initiated a complex sequence of more strings which shut all of the cages at once. The birds caught inside started to panic, thus alerting the birds that were still free. These started to scatter around to flee from the sudden, unseen danger. That's when Marcel and his henchmen jumped out, and managed to catch a few more birds who were unfortunate enough to fly near the hunters, instead of getting away from them.

Marcel then noticed a very special bird. One of which he knew was extremely rare and thus, valuable. It was a black macaw, with a bright white beak, and yellow feathers at the tips of its wings and tail. He quickly grabbed another net and made a swing at it. "Tipa, Armando, get that one!" he yelled. His henchmen turned around, saw the bird Marcel was trying to catch, and got a new net themselves. All three of them waved the nets around in an attempt to catch it, but the macaws kept skillfully dodging the nets, as if he was playing with them. Finally, when the macaw started to feel tired, he gained altitude, to seize any attempt of the poachers catching him. He reached the treetops, escaping the reach of the nets, securing his freedom. But there was one thing he didn't take into account.

One of his own kind.

Nigel watched as the poachers had caught all of the birds they could, but saw they had trouble with that particular black one. If he was going to have it in for every other pretty bird out there, he might as well make himself useful. This way was just as good as to get back at them.

He dove in from behind, seizing the black macaw by the neck. He got the air knocked out of him for a second, then realized what just happened. "What are you doing? Let me go!" he managed to say. "Sorry, pretty bird," Nigel retorted, "But your days of freedom are over." He cackled like a maniac, lifted the macaw up, and headed towards the poachers. He looked for an empty cage, threw the macaw in and slammed it shut, the shock securing the lock into place. "How... could... you..." the macaw said, dazed from the impact. Nigel just looked at him with an angry look, one that would kill if it had the ability to. He then turned towards the poachers.

All three of them were astounded. They just witnessed their prize handed to them by a cockatoo. But not just any cockatoo. "Hey, I know that bird," Marcel said. "It's Nigel from "Fly Hard!" Armando, the thinnest of the two henchmen, asked: "Didn't he get fired?" Marcel recalled this morning's newspaper. "Yeah, indeed he did. And now look what he just did. He helped us catch a rare bird, and made us a fortune!" Tipa, the fat one, was holding a net, ready to fling it towards Nigel. "Should we catch him too?" Nigel steeled himself and got ready to assault Tipa if he tried that, but Marcel slapped him across the face. "No you idiot, he just helped us! Don't you understand what this means? It means he doesn't care much for these birds no more than we do when we sell them off. If he were with us, he could become a perfect scout, look out for more rare birds, and help us catch a lot more game than we usually do!" He turned towards Nigel, and held out a forearm. "What do you say, Nigel? Care to help us some more?" Nigel squawked, flew up and landed on Marcel's arm. "Haha, nice! You're going to be a real asset to our little team, Nigel! Those dimwits at the TV studios dropped you like a brick, but with us, as long as there is a market for exotic birds, you'll never run out of work!" Nigel squawked at the thought. He'd empty the whole forest if he could, just so his thirst for revenge could be sated, if at all.

They set out every other month to capture more birds, and they would always return bountiful on every trip. When that time was there again, Nigel scouted ahead to find another pack of birds. He came across an area filled with them. These birds somehow where in the middle of what seemed song, dance and music.

All the birds of a feather
Do what they love most of all
We are the best at rhythm and laughter
That's why we love carnaval

"Not so good at watching your surroundings, I hope" He thought, flying off to the three poachers closing in behind him. The birds continued to sing and dance, unaware of what was about to happen to them. Mere moments later, birds left and right were getting caught in all manners of ways of captivity. When the runners had scattered, Nigel saw something in the corner of his eye. It looked like a blue dot falling towards the ground. Upon inspection, he saw that it was a very rare baby blue Spix macaw that tried and failed to fly for the first time. Nigel headed back to the poachers, grabbed a cage, squawked at Marcel so he would follow him, and headed back to the tiny chick. Nigel dropped the cage on top of him, which Marcel then collected. "Nice one, Nigel! This one is very young, but he should sell very nicely. You'll get a nice reward when we get back to our holdout." Nigel gave a wry smile at the chick, which cowered in the furthest corner of the cage it could find.

Over the years, Marcel and his henchmen's activities of smuggling birds made their notoriety grow, mostly thanks to the efforts of Nigel. They established a large network of informants, one of them even working in the local avian care center. They were also occasionally asked to fill a specific request, which they would always meet. This time though, they just received a request that was going to be very tricky, even for them. A customer wanted a pair of the last blue Spix macaws on the planet for his collection, and was willing to pay huge for them. Marcel contacted his informants, and all them responded negatively, save for one: the one working in the care center. They had recently found a female blue Spix macaw, and the owner of the care center, Tulio, set out into the world to find a male one. A few days passed until Marcel got contacted by the same informant. Tulio had found a male in Minnesota, USA, and had convinced its owner to come to Rio. As this was great news for Marcel, he'd now have to come up with a plan to get to them.

He and Nigel were walking on a market when they heard a commotion behind them. They turned around to see what was going on. A young boy, wearing the outfit of his favorite Brazilian soccer player, was running away from a stall owner. In his hands were a couple of apples he just stole. Given his youth, he was much faster and agile than the merchant. An idea rose in Marcel's head. "Nigel, follow that boy. I think I've got a plan."

Fernando stopped in a dark alley, panting from the running. He had managed to lose the merchant in one of the many narrow streets running through the favela. Sitting down, he was looking forward to taking a bite from one of the apples, since he hasn't eaten all day. Being an orphan, he had to fend for himself in any way he could.

He heard movement coming from his right. First, he thought it was the merchant who found him after all. Instead, it was another man with a cockatoo on his shoulder. Neither of them looked very friendly, but Fernando had nowhere to go, as this man was blocking the only way out of the alley.

"Hey, kid. Are you interested in making some money? I've got a job I can't be seen doing, and you'd be perfect for it," Marcel said. Fernando didn't like his current situation, but he didn't exactly have much options right now. "What do you want from me?" "Not here. Follow me to my place, and I'll explain."

Eduardo and Vavara, two employees of Centro de Conservaçao Ambiental, the avian care center run by Tulio Monteiro, were walking through the jungle, in search of birds that were in need of any help. They heard a slight moan coming from the bushes up ahead. They turned to each other. "Did you hear that?" Vavara asked. "Yes," Eduardo replied, "it sounded like a bird groaning in pain." They sneaked closer towards the bush, and pushed its leaves gently aside. There, they behold a white cockatoo, clearly sick from a tropical fever. "I know that bird! That's Nigel! They spat him out when his career ended," Vavara stated. As she moved closer to Nigel to pick him, she said "Don't worry Nigel, we'll take care of you. A bird that isn't native to Brazil shouldn't be out here at all. I wish those mean TV folks just sent you to us, then you wouldn't be sick like this right now." Nigel, keeping up his charade, laughed inside. "Just take me to your aviary, I can't wait to get rid of you two already. I just hope Fernando delivers..."

And with that, Nigel was brought to the care center. The male blue macaw was to be brought in tomorrow and placed with the female right away, and with Nigel on the inside, it would just be a matter of time before Marcel would get his hands on them.

The End (of this story)

Notes: I know it's weird for the smugglers in the movie being the same ones that caught baby Blu for the first time, and it probably wasn't them in the first place (and Nigel probably wasn't helping them too), since there's 15 years in between. This is just some liberty I took for this story.