Chapter 87- it all falls into place, Rafael's rush to fetch Blu and company
Somewhere else in the burning sanctuary
Bellatrix began to stir as her consciousness seeped back. However, as she began to come round, she felt that her body was inside some sort of stiff case. The daughter of Tiago and Matilda and Byron's sister jolted awake and gazed down at the case and saw that it was made up of thick green tendrils. Then she turned round and saw a wall of rough brown, her back against it. A horrified gasp of realisation entered through Bellatrix's beak when she saw that she was tied to a log by a bundle of vines. On either side of her, another Spix macaw, P ris and two Lear's macaws, Vega and Regulus were tied such that the four chicks formed a row. Above Bellatrix's row, a red macaw chick was tied with a colourful macaw chick while tied below her were three flying fox pups and another blue macaw chick with a grey head and yellow facial patches. Dread welling within her, Bellatrix began to examine her surroundings and realised that she and the other macaw chicks and flying fox pups were tied to a log, in three rows. In the first row were Sylvester and Aldebaran; in row two were P ris, Bellatrix, Vega and Regulus and in row three were Sandalwood, Katniss, Ferdinand and Connie. All ten kids were tied to a fairly large log with some very strong vines and when Bellatrix examined the surroundings, she realised that the group was in some sort of clearing in the forest, a shallow crater whose walls consisted of trees. Above the treeline, an orange glow continued to rise into the starry sky, pillars of smoke belching into it and blocking out much of the black canvas with its blanket of glitter thrown across it, and the sound of rushing water indicated a nearby stream or small river running through the clearing.
As Bellatrix gazed worriedly at the surroundings, P ris, who was tied next to her, turned her head to the confused darker blue version of her grandmother Aurora and mother Matilda.
"Ah, you've finally managed to come round, as I can see," said she. Bellatrix shot a confused look at Finnick and Kira's daughter.
"What happened?" she asked.
"We appear to be in some sort of treeless area," Vega said as she took in the surroundings as well, "How we ended up here, I don't know."
Then Ferdinand, who was tied between Connie and Katniss, gazed up at Bellatrix's row.
"I don't know either," he said befuddled, "But the last thing I can remember is… us three were trying to escape that fire being caused by some of those toucan chicks with those flaming branches, and then we were attacked by something and knocked out."
The moment the words 'toucan chicks with those flaming branches' left his mouth, the heads of the others excluding P ris and Katniss all jerked upwards as horror stung them all like a bee.
"Did I just hear THAT right!?" blurted out Sandalwood. Then Bellatrix shot Ferdinand an incredulous look.
"Are you meaning to say that you've seen some TOUCAN CHICKS with BRANCHES SET AFIRE!?" she screeched in utter disbelief.
"You've gotta be kidding us!" growled Regulus, a look of outrage plastering his face. However, Ferdinand, along with P ris and Katniss, nodded to confirm that they weren't.
"Then WHAT IN THE WORLD were those toucan chicks doing with BRANCHES OF FIRE!?" asked P ris loudly.
"You know FULL WELL that fire is DANGEROUS if mishandled!" put in Sylvester. Next to him, Aldebaran struggled in the vines holding him to the log.
"Yes, Mrs Andromeda, Mr Eragon, Mr Spyro, Mrs Marella and the other elder archaeobirds including Bambi said so," said he, "But how did those toucan chicks get a hold of those flaming branches or how did they find out how to set them alight?"
However, the shoulders of the three witnesses to this dreadful scene rose in a shrug.
"We have no idea," said P ris.
"That's anybody's guess," put in Katniss.
"But the only thing we DO know is that they have set this forest totally ablaze," said Ferdinand. He then stole a glance at the orange glow hovering menacingly above the treeline. As the flying fox pup and Sandalwood's cousin spoke, Aldebaran winced as he felt something pop into his head, an idea he didn't like.
"That human Bill's box of the things called matches," whispered he to himself, "And their mysterious disappearance at the Chinesa Vista stand."
Then he went over the uneasy feeling he had at the Chinesa Vista stand; the feeling of himself, his brother Altair and their parents Petunia and Benjamin and grandparents Esmeralda and Aramis, who led the group, being watched by something, alongside that flash of movement out the corner of his eye. It was then that the seven macaw chicks and three flying fox pups heard a sequence of short hisses emit from something and based on how those hisses came out, it was clear that that something was laughing, and not in a light-hearted way. The ten kids began to shoot glances this way and that at the dark surroundings. Ferdinand was confused by this sound for this sound belonged to someone totally unfamiliar to him but he assumed it to be some sort of other reptile. However, everyone else wore scowls on their faces, especially Bellatrix, Connie and Sandalwood, for they knew that hissy laugh.
"Is that a snake?" asked Ferdinand timidly, the hissy laughing noise striking fear into him. Then suddenly, the sounds of bird laughter shook the air, startling everyone. There were many of them based on those sounds. P ris immediately recognised these as well.
"Toucan chicks," the Spix macaw chick said in a low voice. But then a horrible feeling washed over her and her pale blue eyes widened. Bellatrix and the others continued shooting more terrified and scowling glances this way and that at the dark surroundings from their vine binds.
"Where are you!?" shouted Bellatrix, trying to sound bold and unafraid.
"Yes, show yourself!" put in P ris, her feathers bristled and her short ponytail spiked out.
"We recognise you based on those menacing laughs, you colour-changing serpent with LEGS!" added Connie maliciously. Ferdinand shot the grey-headed flying fox pup a confused look.
"Colour-changing…?" asked he. Sandalwood then turned to his confused cousin.
"He's that cha…" he began but before he could mention the species of the owner of the hissy laughs, timid whimpers escaped from Ferdinand's mouth, and the beaks of P ris and Katniss, before a small orange glow appeared in the darkness. Sandalwood, Connie, Bellatrix and the others followed Ferdinand and the two macaw chicks' gazes and when their eyes landed on the hovering glowing orbs of flickering orange fingers, alongside the holders illuminated by those orbs, horror, the biggest wave of it they had EVER felt, tore through them.
"No," whispered Bellatrix timidly, hoping that what she and the others were seeing weren't true. However, the daughter of Tiago and Matilda knew very well that she and the others weren't hallucinating, or that the sight was something straight out of their imaginations. The sight was very REAL indeed.
Standing before the tied-up group of seven macaw chicks and three flying fox pups on their log, a small crowd of black red-cream fronted chicks with large orange and black or lime green and magenta beaks stood, some of them holding sticks that had the orange orbs on their tips and above the colourful beaks were pairs of menacing eyes, all saturated with pure meanness. This was no mischievous meanness. Not even the meanness they would harbour in their bullying behaviour. This meanness was that of a bunch of highly dangerous and malicious gangsters and Sandalwood thought he spotted a few slivers of colour bound to some of the sticks, on the opposite ends to the burning ends at the tops. As he examined them closer, he realised what they were and shuddered, both outrage and disgust tearing through him.
"Parrot feathers," he whispered disgustedly. Ferdinand and the macaw chicks shot the amber flying fox pup a horrified look. There had been a colony of certain winged mammals that lived in the Amazon that tied feathers on the ends of their weapons, like the fairly common spear-like sharp-sticks, as trophies from their feathered kills, and the torches held by the toucan chicks were reminiscent of those based on how the feathers, which some of Sandalwood's group assumed to be moulted feathers that the toucan chicks had somehow found, were tied. Then a shockwave of heated offense tore through Sandalwood and Ferdinand for they found those feathers tied to the ends of those sticks utterly insulting, as did the macaw chicks. Connie, however, was confused and tipped her head to one side for she knew next to nothing about Cicatriz and his colony and thus did not understand very well how the toucan chicks' use of those parrot feathers on their makeshift torches was offensive to the rest of the group. But then the grey-headed flying fox's eyes landed on something at the front of the small crowd of toucan chicks.
That creature had scales, but those scales were crisscrossed with slashes and bite-marks, most of them half-healed and scabby, and it had legs that, as revealed in the light of the flames burning on the toucan chicks' torches, ended in pad-like hands and feet, and a long tail flowed out from behind the creature, ending in a coil as sinister as that of a snake ready to pounce and strike. Its head had lobes emanating behind its face and on its face were eyes on cone-like turrets and those eyes were pointed at Sandalwood and the others, the most acidic rancour and scorn burning in them as they pierced the group and from the mouth beneath the eyes, a hissy laugh of scorn emitted from it. As all these features began to click together within the minds of Sandalwood and Connie and the macaw chicks that had met him in the fraudulent Paradise Sanctuary place, that reptile that captured and fed parrots to Carnassial and his gang, recognition finally took hold and as it did, horrified disbelief tore through them.
"DALEK!?" shouted Bellatrix, P ris, Sylvester, Aldebaran, Vega, Regulus, Katniss, Sandalwood and Connie altogether in utmost disbelief. Ferdinand threw on a confused look.
"Who!?" asked he. However, none of the others who knew the chameleon, which was indeed Dalek, replied for they were too stricken by immense disbelief to even form words.
Dalek stood there with the small crowd of toucan chicks, which Bellatrix had estimated to be about thirty or forty or perhaps more, quite a few armed with the parrot feather-decorated torches, before Sandalwood and his group, an uglier look to him than ever before. His hide was crisscrossed with dried up and scabby scratches and bite-marks, his battle scars resulting from his opponents, most of them his parrot victims, slashing him with their claws and biting him with their beaks in their attempts to escape when he forcibly handled them and shoved them into the Compartment of the Carnivores, and some of those wounds were showing signs of scarring. Sandalwood and some of the others shuddered for Dalek resembled the description of a heavily scarred flying fox from Cicatriz's colony who including Cicatriz himself, had been in numerous fights with countless birds. But what was even uglier than the chameleon's claw and bite marks was the look in his face, especially his eyes, as they glared menacingly, like a heated laser beam, at Sandalwood and company, especially at the macaw chicks. Dalek's face was saturated with pure and extremely caustic and bitter insanity, rancour, wrath, vengeance and other negative things that boiled and festered like a severely infected wound. It was then that Katniss and Aldebaran's eyes travelled from the chameleon to his feet and landed on an array of some objects scattered on the stony, patchily grassy floor around Dalek's front feet. Some of the objects appeared to be cuboid shaped, with a smaller cuboid slotted in them and one of their sides bearing some sort of strip. With the cuboids were countless sticks, all of them ending in a small bulge. Some of the sticks' bulbs were red and unused but some of the other sticks' bulbous ends were black and kinked, indicating that they had been used. Katniss had seen these somewhere before, but so has Aldebaran and as the two felt recognition of those little boxes and sticks take hold, another MASSIVE wave of immense horror, tore through them.
"Those are…" began Katniss.
"MATCHES FROM THOSE HUMANS!" shouted Aldebaran, finishing Katniss' sentence. Sandalwood and the other seven also threw on even more horrified looks. The many, many things scattered at Dalek's feet were indeed matches from their boxes, and amongst them were the box of matches from Bill, the human Aramis and company, including Aldebaran, had accompanied to the Chinesa Vista. Some of the matches had obviously been used based on their blackened and kinked bulbous ends while those with the red bulbous tips were unused. As Aldebaran and the others gazed at the sticks and cuboids strewn across the ground before Dalek and the toucan chicks, Dalek let loose an extremely diabolical, demented hissy laugh the most fiendish one he had ever concocted, sending fear flaring within Sandalwood and the others.
"But HOW!?" asked Katniss.
"Those chimpanzees reported him to have FALLEN to his DEATH outside that window!" put in Connie. Dalek, for he cannot speak, showed how he had managed to evade Herbert and his chimp troupe's attempts to catch him by taking a large leaf and putting it on his head to simulate his hat. Then as Sandalwood and the others watched, Dalek then tossed aside the leaf and darted away from it. At first Bellatrix, Aldebaran, Polaris, Vega, Regulus, Katniss, Sylvester, Sandalwood and Connie were perplexed but then it dawned upon them.
"He must have used his to distract those chimps during his escape," said Vega.
"Therefore faking his own death!" screeched Polaris scornfully as she glared bitterly at Dalek who folded his forelimbs and put on a sneering look as if to say, 'Good guess, parrot rats'. Sandalwood then glared at the chameleon.
"So, it seems that you have duped Dundee and the others into thinking that you have died and have stalked us all the way from Peru to HERE!" bellowed the amber flying fox pup angrily. Dalek nodded in response to this confirmation and let loose another hissy laugh while the toucan chicks just smiled menacingly. Then a series of memories as to how Dalek had followed the group to Rio began to flash and play in Sandalwood and some of the others' minds.
Sandalwood remembered seeing a flash of movement in Peru just as he, Augustus, Melissa, Acerola, Stella, Luna and Soren were picked up in their cage by Linda to be loaded onto the plane, but he had assumed it to be one of the monkeys being guided by one of the real conservationists to one of the cages containing more monkeys. Then the incident of the floating blanket that enveloped Blu and Jewel's heads and almost suffocating them during the trip back home flashed in Sandalwood's mind, along with that brief hissing noise which Sandalwood had assumed to be Aurora, who has also been asleep, breathing in a certain way through her beak. It was clear that someone had tried to smother Blu and Jewel with the blanket on the plane, and had used their ability to change colour to become invisible to attempt to kill those two Spix macaws unnoticed. This trick made it appear to Sandalwood and Katniss, who had also witnessed the sinister movement, that the blanket was moving all by itself when in actuality an invisible someone was moving it, holding it by the corners, and there was only one creature capable of changing his colour to match his surroundings and turn invisible and give the illusion of things he carried and moved that those things were moving by themselves or levitating.
Then Sandalwood remembered the uneasy feeling borne by him and some of the other kids during the journey, the feeling of being watched and stalked, in addition to Lillie's sighting of another flash of movement back in Rio airport shortly after everyone had disembarked from the plane, and also Aldebaran's sighting of a movement flash at the Chinesa Vista, coinciding with the disappearance of Bill's matches after the man had placed them back into his bag shortly after his brother Altair had been pulled away from them by Benjamin when he examined them. It then dawned upon Aldebaran that Dalek had been at the Chinesa Vista, had been listening to the talk Aramis held about how the Blu Bird Sanctuary got its name, as well as Bill and his colleagues' discussion about the toucan capture progress, and after seeing Bill's bag and the box of matches pulled out by Altair and then placed back in the bag by Bill as witnessed by his grandfather Aramis, the chameleon must have quickly scurried out from his hiding place once everyone's backs were turned, sneaked into that specific compartment of Bill's bag, had nabbed the entire box of matches and quickly fled before anyone could turn in his direction, which explained Aldebaran's sighting of the movement flash out of the corner of his eye, which he initially assumed was a bird flying past the Chinesa Vista in the jungle. And when some of the chicks had heard of the disappearing box of matches, they had assumed that one of the bad toucans had got a hold of them but that had been disproven here and now.
As Aldebaran went over the possibility of someone seizing that box of matches in a blink of an eye while everyone was not looking, his eyes then travelled to the torches held by some of the toucan chicks who Sandalwood and some of the other kids with him excluding Ferdinand, believed to have been recruited by Dalek. Finally, as Aldebaran's eyes moved back to the scatter of matches and matchboxes on the floor, among them Bill's box of matches as recognised by him from its design, in front of Dalek and the toucan chicks, Aldebaran, along with Sandalwood and the others including Ferdinand, glared furiously at the chameleon for they had arrived at only one possible conclusion. However, Ferdinand only glared at the chameleon and the toucan chicks for finding such dangerous materials but the other nine had further reason to be furious.
"YOU were the one who had snaffled those matches from that human Bill at the Chinesa Vista, aren't you!?" snarled Aldebaran volcanically, "along with those countless other matches from other humans. YOU were the one who must have manipulated those toucan chicks spread that fire through the Blu Bird Sanctuary and set it alight according to Polaris, Katniss and Ferdinand here!"
"I cannot BELIEVE you would CONCOCT such a DIABOLICAL, DEVIOUS, DESTRUCTIVE THING!" screeched Bellatrix, her pigtails flared out. Then the eyes of some of the other kids scoured the toucan chicks thunderously.
"Not to MENTION recruit some of those TROUBLEMAKERS as your ACCOMPLICES!" shouted Katniss. Dalek, however, retained his devilish look and let loose another hissy laugh while the toucan chicks tittered. Then one of the toucan chicks came forward and said, "This guy has just thought of a brilliant game for us to play," with a nod to Dalek who put on a devilishly proud face and folded his forelimbs.
"It's called 'Branches of Fire'," put in another toucan chick, a female.
"Pretty cool, eh?" said a third who held one of the feather-decorated torches. Then titters rolled through Dalek's 'recruits'. Sandalwood's group, however, were NOT amused.
"Cool!?" spat Regulus with disgust, the others in his group including Ferdinand and Connie glaring at the toucan chicks, "You THINK it's cool to set the WHOLE FOREST alight like that!?" he nodded to the orange glow above the treeline and its smoke as he said this. Then his face morphed into a look of realisation. Sandalwood and the others' faces replicated the same looks, a conclusion having popped up in their heads. It seemed that Dalek had not only being gathering matches from Bill at the Chinesa Vista and from some other humans who had been visiting the sanctuary by entering whatever carrier things they had, such as bags, for anything that could start a fire easily, such as boxes of matches or cigarette lighters, but had also convinced some of the marauding toucan chicks, many of them that had gone down the wrong path thanks to their parents' lack of disciplining them, into becoming his accomplices, whilst Ferdinand, Katniss and Polaris arrived at a very possible cause as to how the toucan chicks they had seen with those branches lit with fire had obtained it in the first place. But a flock of troublemaking gangster toucan chicks, plus Dalek, plus his gathering of the matches and other fire-starting tools, his convincing of the toucan chicks to play with fire was an EXTREMELY dangerous, explosive and destructive concoction, and that was not all. Bellatrix and some of the others had also deduced that Dalek must have hatched a plan to burn the Blu Bird Sanctuary down and kill all the parrots living on the protected area, and parrots were Dalek's most DETESTED type of animal. Furthermore, Dalek must have sent countless more toucan chicks to attack Bellatrix's group and kidnap them, ending with them getting tied up. The same must have happened to Sandalwood, Regulus, Vega and also Katniss, Polaris and Ferdinand as they were trying to escape the fire, and also Connie while she was trying to find Sandalwood. Then Connie told the others that something had ambushed her and knocked her out shortly after she had resumed her search for Sandalwood after rescuing Acerola, Sirius and the others from the burrow and have Mauro and his gang carry them to safety. She then gazed with a regrettable look at Sandalwood, the guilt of the things she had yelled at him boiling within her, but a proper apology would have to wait until Sandalwood and company got out of this utter mess.
As everything summed up to the final conclusion and all the pieces of fragmented picture clicked together; Sandalwood and company began to tremble with extreme rage as they continued to glare at Dalek and his toucan chick accomplices.
"We get it now," growled Sandalwood, his anger threatening to volcanically erupt, especially as his eyes gazed at the orange glow and the rising smoke above the treeline of the clearing, "YOU want to destroy Rio's sanctuary and kill as many parrots as possible by BURNING it to the ground, DON'T YA!?"
The other nine kids also pierced Dalek with glares as hot as the fire ripping through the Blu Bird Sanctuary and released cat-like hisses of pure caustic acid. Then Dalek let loose a loud hiss, one saturated with pure rancour. The toucan chicks, however, only exchanged confused glances and shrugged. Then Bellatrix began to convince the toucan chicks about Dalek's villainy and danger, for she sensed that Dalek had evil intentions for them as well.
"YOU lot, get away from that chameleon, he's DANGEROUS!" she called.
"Yes, and put out those flaming branches," added Polaris, "Fire is NOT something to mess with!"
The other eight kids also protested the same things to the toucan chicks but to their utmost dismay, their protests of desperation fell on deaf ears and none of the toucan chicks listened. However, the two groups, both Sandalwood and Dalek's, were being watched. Behind a large rock, someone was watching the dramatic scene, a severely horrified look on his face. He had black feathers and a white front, and a large orange beak with a black tip but unlike the toucan chicks, he was a good toucan, and when he saw Bellatrix's group tied to the log and how the chameleon and his group of 'recruits', all of them his own descendants and some of the many, many gangster toucan chicks ravaging the sanctuary, were taunting them, he trembled violently, especially when he heard what came out of some of the toucan chicks' beaks next.
"But it's a LOTTA fun," said one of the toucan chicks in response to Bellatrix and Polaris' warnings.
"We LOVE fire," put in another who held one of the torches, "It's AWESOME!"
This drained the colours of the facial skins of Sandalwood, Bellatrix and company, under their fur and feathers, until the colour of their skins was as pale as a shrivelled white mushroom, and some of them, especially Sandalwood, Ferdinand and Sylvester, felt their stomachs turn, Sylvester even retching at these words. However, they put aside their immense disgust and glared at the toucan chicks crowding around Dalek.
"It AIN'T AWESOME if it is allowed to run amok and cause mass DEVASTATION," retorted Ferdinand. However, the mischievous looks on the toucan kids' faces remained and Dalek let loose another devilish hiss. It was obvious that the toucan chicks' naiveté had completely blinded them to the dangers of playing with fire as well as the evil and manipulative, parrot-loathing chameleon who had 'recruited' them into this 'game'. Then Dalek nodded to his little accomplices with a series of gestures with his front limbs and with that, the toucan chicks began to advance upon Sandalwood's group. Some of the toucan chicks had vines and as they saw the deranged toucan kids walk towards them, crow-like giggles escaping their beaks, Sandalwood and the others began to whimper and squirm. From behind his hiding place, the orange and black beaked bird flinched and whirled round.
"I've gotta find help PRONTO before that lot does anything to Bellatrix, Sandalwood and the others!" he cried quietly and lofted into flight.
Meanwhile
Blu and Jewel, together with Augustus, Stella, Melissa, Soren, Carla, Bia, Zephyr, Aurora, Spinel, Diantha and Tom continued to fly through the treetops of the unlit jungle at a safe distance from the tide-line of the spreading orange flames to keep out of the smoke and away from the heat. Immense dread and worry plagued the group, and Jewel, Zephyr and Aurora were especially trembling at the sea of menacingly dancing flames and the fumes of highly polluting, suffocating smoke they kept vomiting into the sky.
"Our kids are gonna be scarred for life with an outright fear of fire like us when we rescue them and they recover," said Zephyr. He thought of Bambi, the son of Spyro and Marella who had only just begun to embark on the path of learning about fire and its dangers and how to use it safely, and the eventual practical intro of it when he became a teen, and was an aspiring fire dancer much like a close friend of his uncle Spock who led a band of fire-stick spinning archaeobirds who performed during special dances in the archaeobird clan back in the Amazon, and if he ended up scarred by this fire, his dreams of becoming one of the archaeobird clan's fire-dancers were severely jeopardised. But then something else churned in the bubbles of worry boiling within Blu and company.
"I hope Sheldon and the others are alright," said Carla, her gaze behind the group, "He's so brave in leading some of us away to expand on the search range of the sanctuary for the missing kids."
"Yes, but he's also Spinel's last remaining macaw close to her," said Bia, her equally worried gaze fixed on the pink-red scarlet macaw who looked visibly distressed over Sheldon's decision to spread out from the group. If Betelgeuse, Rigel and Antares were ever found dead and if anything fatal were to ever happen to Sheldon, not only will it tear Spinel's heart into pieces but she may never, ever, EVER allow herself to find another male macaw to fall in love with and have another family again. Diantha gazed both sympathetically at Spinel but also with caustic bitterness as well but not for that macaw.
"I hope Sofia's enjoying herself after putting her through all this emotional, hellish nightmare again by stealing her three chicks along with the others," she growled, her temper against her sister, which she never saw as her sister anymore, and her mate Marcel threatening to explode.
"Look, let's just focus on searching and rescuing the missing kids first," said Tom, "We'll get to that later once we've finished this important, risky rescue mission."
Diantha sighed and resumed the flight, worry for Spinel plastering her face and the fear for the missing kids, especially Sandalwood who was Stella and Soren's only son, boiling within her.
As the group of four flying foxes and nine birds continued their flight, they heard the shout of someone familiar. Blu stopped the group into a hover and shot Augustus a look.
"Did you just yell my name, Augustus?" asked he.
"I never said anything," replied Augustus.
"Unless it's…" began Melissa but then Blu and Jewel's names rang out again, this time louder, and the voice sounded old and raspy, like an aged bird. At first, the thirteen confused animals shot glances this way and that but could not see the shouter in the surrounding lake of dark unlit trees but then Aurora's amber eyes landed on an incoming form emerging from some of them. She then noticed that the form had a bright orange beak with a black tip and a white face and torso. Recognition took hold within her almost immediately.
"RAFAEL!" she shouted at the incoming form, which was indeed a toco toucan named Rafael, as he came rocketing towards her and her group, shouting Blu and Jewel's name. Then Blu, Jewel, Zephyr, Carla, Bia, Spinel, Diantha and Tom fluttered forward.
"Uncle Rafael!" called Carla, Bia and Spinel together.
"Dad!" said Diantha.
"Rafael," cried Blu, Jewel, Zephyr and Tom. Augustus, Stella, Soren and Melissa also recognised the toucan as he flew up to the group and slowed to a hover, pausing to catch his breath.
"Are you alright, Rafael?" asked Augustus when he saw the fluster and agitation saturating the puffing and panting toco toucan's face.
"You look like you've been chased by a predator," said Soren.
"More like trying to escape that fire," said Melissa with a glance at the sea of flames as it continued to spread throughout the trees. Then as soon as Rafael had got his breath back, he finally began to speak without having to pause to puff and pant or have his rapid breathing break up his sentences. However, as his terrified and horrified gaze revealed itself on his face, Blu and the others felt concern well within them.
"You MUST COME WITH ME NOW!" he shouted, "While I was out looking for YOU guys for help soon after I had escorted my love Eva to safety with Gylfie, my well-behaved toucan kids and the kids of some of you," his gaze flashed to Carla, Bia and Spinel as he said this, "I came across some small flames in the clearing and went to investigate, but when I did, I saw a bunch of some of those beyond-naughty toucan chicks holding sticks with flames on the end with a large, claw and bite mark-riddled lizard in front of them glaring and taunting some young animals tied to a log…"
As he said this, Aurora and Zephyr mouthed 'sticks with flames' while the others were too fixed on Rafael's explanation of what he had seen. The others then exchanged horrified glances before gazing back at Rafael.
"Could you recognise those young animals, Dad?" asked Diantha.
"I couldn't see them very well, my daughter for they were quite some distance from the torches held by those toucan chicks," replied Rafael, "But I did recognise some of their voices. I think I heard Tiago and Matilda's daughter speak and also a flying fox pup…" he then shook his head and began to explain how he had found Bellatrix and the others with her, "We were supposed to be taking Bellatrix, Byron and some of the other chicks to safety after…"
"Look, save the explanations till later," interrupted Blu urgently, "Take us to where you've found those tied-up young animals. I have a bad feeling about this."
Rafael nodded, turned tail and rocketed off. Blu, Jewel, Augustus, Melissa, Stella, Soren, Zephyr and Aurora launched into a speedy flight after him with Diantha, Tom, Carla, Bia and Spinel right behind them.
"Based on Rafael's witnessing of that scene," cried Stella distressfully, "I reckon Sandalwood and one of Tiago and Matilda's chicks must have been captured."
"We must rescue them before any of those toucan chicks and whatever new friend they have found do anything heinous to them," put in Soren. Then Zephyr threw on a suspicious and dreaded look.
"Toucan chicks with torches?" he growled, but then he began to tremble as his dread boiled dangerously within him.
"Let's just follow Rafael to where he has found this scene, dear," said Aurora. Zephyr nodded and resumed his flight, and so Blu's group followed Rafael to the site where Sandalwood and the others were being held by the toucan chicks and their new reptilian friend, which was Dalek.