Chapter 6- Milo and Ahsoka find out their species rarity

Sydney, Australia

On the other side of the world from the UK where Brandon, Aurora and Sirius lived, another human and macaw friend pair went about their daily routine. They lived in Sydney, Australia, a city known for its iconic Opera House and harbour. This human and macaw friend duo was Milo, a male Lear's macaw and his human friend and owner Audrey. However, the pair used to live in Perth, a city right on the other side of the entire continent and Milo's adventures of the 12 years had been far more complicated, and tragic, than Sirius and Aurora's. Milo had grown up in Perth with Audrey but not throughout his entire life as Aurora and Sirius had done with Brandon in London. As mentioned in a previous chapter, Audrey had special needs and speech problems and often had to go to therapy to help her develop her ability to speak. Her parents had brought her Milo (then called Bruno) as a birthday present and the two had become fast friends the moment they laid eyes on each other. However, Milo had not been welcomed by everyone in the family. Audrey's older sister, Ana who was extremely jealous of her younger sister and the attention her parents had to give her to help her develop, had immediately taken a disliking to the Lear's macaw who the family, like Brandon, thought to be a small hyacinth macaw. Ana was an extremely selfish individual and I am sorry to say that she did NOT like her younger sister Audrey one bit. She despised all the attention their parents gave her to help her develop and saw Audrey as an inconvenience. Even worse, she mocked her speech problems and special needs and sought to cause her trouble wherever she could, often when the girls' parents weren't looking and when Milo was brought into the picture, she began to stoke the fires of the trouble.

As Audrey and Milo grew up together with Milo helping Audrey to learn more words by using pictures (he had learned to draw simple pictures using a pencil or pen and paper as well as write), Ana began to try and drive a wedge between Audrey and their parents. She would often make up stories to tell her parents that Audrey was obsessed with the macaw and ONLY with that macaw and that the macaw was telling her to do naughty things, and that she would NOT make any human friends though Audrey had tried to do that with some other kids at playschool. This worked as it eventually got the mother and father concerned and eventually, it got to a point where they considered taken the macaw off of Audrey despite the emotional avalanche it would cause her, but that was what the horrible sister Ana wanted. She wanted to destroy Audrey's heart as much as possible. Throughout his time with Audrey, Milo could not fly, much like Blu during his time with Linda. Then came the day where things came to a head. One day, Ana took Milo and threatened to drop the macaw from the window of the flat (which was a third-floor flat) into the garbage skip below as a threat to Audrey and as a means of severely upsetting her. She relished Audrey's tearful begs to return the macaw to her and laughed nastily at her stutters and speech struggles. However, the incident took a drastic turn for the worst as Milo, feeling threatened by Ana and her rough handling, clamped his beak onto Ana's hand, making her drop him onto a ledge. Audrey tried to retrieve Milo but ended up falling out of the window directly above the skip to the HORROR of both Milo and Ana. However, she fell but was caught by her father and some neighbours who had heard her terrified cries. Then came the most SPITEFUL thing the HORRIBLE sister of Audrey did of all. When confronted over the incident, Ana vomited a torrent of lies that Milo told Audrey climb out of the window and put herself in danger on purpose and that had been the final straw. Early the next morning, Milo was packed into a cage and driven away to a pet store by Audrey and Ana's father. Audrey desperately ran after the car but her mother caught her and took her back home but Audrey erupted into a MASSIVE temper tantrum and begged for Milo to fly back to her. Her temper tantrums and heartbreak were relished by her cruel sister Ana and she also smirked when she watched Milo get ripped away from his owner from her bedroom window and took immense delight in the harrowing scene.

Over the next few years, Milo went from owner to owner. He was first purchased by a shop owner from the pet store and he spent a few weeks there until an elderly couple named Greg and Ellie purchased him as a companion. He communicated with them via drawings and written messages on paper that he wanted to be back with his owner Audrey but when they drove him to the house where the family lived, they found, to Milo's dismay that they had moved to Sydney and had put up the house for sale. Then Milo decided to stay with the elderly couple for a few years until Ellie passed. However, he still remained flightless throughout this time period as well. Greg, now a widower who was too old to look after Milo, then urged the macaw to leave his side, learn to fly and find Audrey himself. He showed him a map of Australia and that Sydney was due east of Perth, RIGHT on the opposite side of the continent. The key landmarks were the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Should he see these landmarks, he was in Sydney. Milo had been reluctant to leave the kind man and Perth but he eventually did so, eventually learning to fly all by himself in the process, something he had NEVER done back in his original home in Rio due to the trauma of his cruel mother dropping him onto the forest floor and leaving him for dead and thought he would NEVER do. Despite this, Milo flew the ENTIRE distance from Perth to Sydney (with rest stops in between, obviously) and on his flight, the first time in his life, he saw plenty of sites throughout the Australian continent. After the LONG flight from his original home in Perth, he finally, and somehow, manages to arrive in Sydney, recognising the iconic Opera House on one of the leaflets in a shop.

In Sydney, Milo had a number of adventures including joining a band of other macaws, none of them being Lear's, in a performance show. However, he was captured by a thief who tried to use him as a tool in stealing money from other people but Milo, knowing this to be wrong, escaped and continued his journey. After some time, he is eventually found and reunited with Audrey, now a grown woman who worked as a cook in a restaurant. She still had her stutter but her speech had improved drastically, thanks to the start Milo gave her when she was a child. From that time to now, Audrey and Milo lived on but their lives were about to change as well. Much like Brandon thought of Aurora and Sirius, Audrey thought of Milo to be some kind of hyacinth macaw but again, his features made that assumption dubious. Though Milo was dark blue, he was the half the size of a hyacinth macaw much like Aurora and Sirius in the UK and he had dark teal marks on his face and neck, a trait hyacinth macaws did not have. But like Brandon, Aurora and Sirius, the assumption will be shot down when another ornithologist from Rio came to where they lived.

Audrey and Milo lived in a small house near a restaurant where the former worked as a cook in the kitchen. The restaurant had only recently opened and had been called the Blue Macaw's Diner by Audrey in honour of her macaw companion and already, it was quite popular with Milo being the restaurant's mascot, indicated with a dark blue feather above the logo in the restaurant's front window. But because he was a macaw, Milo was not allowed into the kitchen for hygiene reasons but he helped in jobs in the dining area as a waiter, table setter and clearer and order taker. He would pull on trolleys to drag orders to customers waiting at tables, put the plates of food before them and also clear empty plates away, take orders from customers yet to receive their meals by writing their orders down on his pad with a pen by using his talons as hands, and also set the tables with menus, napkins, table numbers and other appropriate objects during the morning routine. Milo was popular among the customers and was often nicknamed the 'Macaw Waiter' because of his talent in waiting and he sometimes did the jobs quite acrobatically. It was indeed a fun job for Audrey's macaw companion and he enjoyed it. However, one particular customer was a visitor from Rio and she was one of Tulio's employees who had been tracking down the Lear's macaw in this area.

The Blue Macaw's Diner team including Audrey and Milo continued their usual activities such as preparing and dishing the meals and delivering them to the customers in the dining hall and clearing the finished plates and cutlery for washing and preparing for the next dishes. As usual, Audrey worked in the kitchen, this time preparing soup while her macaw companion Milo flew and dragged a trolley along with his talons to set some of the tables ready for use by the next customers while going to the tables already occupied by some customers and taking their orders. As he did that, a particular visitor, a woman, entered the restaurant and as soon as she had picked out a table, she went over to it and sat down. She set a bag she had been carrying at her feet and turned to gaze at a dark blue macaw as he wrote down the orders of a family of four onto a pad with a pen. The woman smiled in admiration at the macaw's level of talent when a human waiter came up to her.

"Hi, what can I get for you today, Ma'am?" the male human asked politely. The woman, who was not from Australia then picked up a menu, picked a meal from the list of dishes and then replied with a foreign accent her request for her order, "I would like to have a kangaroo meat pizza and some orange juice, please."

"Certainly," said the man and as soon as he had finished writing the visitor's order down on his pad, he was about to leave when the woman also asked, "Also, can I speak to the lady by the name of Audrey Riley who works as a cook here if she is here? My name is Dr Alejandra Florason, an ornithologist and member of the Project: Blu Bird team in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil."

And with that, she produced a card with her name written on it from a pocket in her coat. The man gazed at the woman and her card in confusion and then obliged by leaving for the doors to the kitchen to pass on the small sheet of paper of the woman's order and also her request that Audrey come out to see her, leaving the woman to sit at the table to wait.

Moments later, Audrey exited the doors to the kitchen into the dining area and went over to the lady. She was dressed in her kitchen outfit consisting of a white cap, overalls, apron and a hair net for she had long hair. She had fair skin, was slender, had brown eyes and wore her hair in a ponytail and she spoke with a stutter, a remnant of her speech disability as a child when she couldn't speak much or properly at all. However, with much help, she had pretty much overcome the impediment and was able to speak more clearly despite the stutter but this improvement had got a good start thanks to Milo before they were torn apart by Audrey's parents thanks to her wicked older sister Ana.

"H-h-hi, Ma'am, you wanted to see me?" asked Audrey. The woman, named Alejandra, showed Audrey her name card.

"My name is Dr Alejandra Florason," she said as Audrey took her name card and read it, "I come from Rio, Brazil and I have travelled all the way here to track down your macaw which I think is... over there..." she gazed in a direction behind Audrey. Audrey turned and saw Milo clear away a set of finished plates when he saw his owner and the visitor gaze at him. He then resumed packing the plates, the knives, forks, fish, cup and spoon onto the trolley and flew off to wheel them to the kitchen. Alejandra turned to Audrey with a fascinated smile.

"You sure have a well-trained macaw working here, don't you, Audrey?" she said.

"I h-h-had him since I was a k-k-kid and h-h-his name is Milo, pardon my stutter," said Audrey, "I have had a s-s-s-speech disorder g-g-growing up and I still have i-i-it now. H-h-h-however, my parents t-t-took him away fr-fr-from me after a b-b-bad incident and th-th-thanks to my AWFUL older s-s-sister Ana wh-wh-wh loathed him to begin with. N-n-now he's back with me and here w-w-we are working here."

"I see," said Alejandra, "you must have had a difficult time growing up then. And I will tell you this, not all siblings are nice to each other."

"M-m-my sister Ana? She was abusive and cr-cr-cruel because of my speech disability and other special n-n-n-needs," said Audrey sadly, "And she st-st-still is now..."

As Audrey continued to talk to Alejandra about her wicked sister who was by now married with a family of her own but still treated her younger sister badly, Milo pulled the trolley to the next table to clear away more finished dishes and cutlery and tidy it up.

Milo had grown into a handsome macaw. He had very dark blue, almost navy, feathers like a hyacinth macaw though he was half the size of one. Enclosing his eyes and beak was a heart-shaped marking coloured dark teal which was barely visible from a distance. Milo had a slim build, a flick of feathers on his crown pointing upward, green eyes, black feet and beak and an orange-yellow ring around each eye. Another piece of orange-yellow skin lay behind his beak mandible. Milo was a skilled flyer, something he had never been as a chick. He also had incredible stamina and strength, being able to haul a trolley around a large diner so regularly and make that INCREDIBLE journey from Perth to Sydney (the distance between the cities being well over 2000 miles or over 3200 kilometres). His desire to find and reunite with Audrey was what drove Milo to learn to fly in the first place. As Milo continued clearing away the table, Alejandra began to comment on the restaurant.

"You certainly have a fine diner, Audrey," she said, "And I certainly do admire your macaw companion's skill in the waiting jobs."

"We-we-we've been working here for two years," said Audrey, "M-M-Milo's an excellent member of the w-w-waiter team. He-he-he cannot work in the kitchen d-d-due to hygiene reasons. He only c-c-comes in to r-r-return the trolley or t-t-to take the orders out t-t-to the customers."

"Obviously not," said Alejandra, "Wouldn't want the food being contaminated would you? Birds can carry a lot of germs that can pose a serious health risk."

Audrey shook her head in agreement to this fact.

"A-a-and when Milo serves the dishes, he always av-av-avoids touching the f-f-food and only r-r-removes the cloches from them," she added. Alejandra smiled as Milo finished tidying the table, checking for any knives or forks left behind and then moved on to the next table with his trolley. Alejandra then moved onto the main subject and reason why she was here.

"Do you mind if I have a word about your macaw companion, Audrey?" asked she.

"What ab-b-b-bout him?" asked Audrey and with that, she sat down at the table for the talk.

"Your macaw is not only special in his skills as a waiter here," Alejandra said, "He is special also in his species."

"How?" asked Audrey, "Isn't he a h-h-h-hyacinth macaw?"

"He may look like a hyacinth macaw but he actually isn't one," said Alejandra, "He is in fact part of a species that is a cousin to the hyacinth called the Lear's macaw, a rare species of macaw."

Audrey flinched a little when she heard this. Across the clearing, Milo gazed up at the two women, having overheard Alejandra mention 'Lear's macaw' being his species.

"A L-L-Lear's macaw!?" Audrey blurted out somewhat in disbelief, "What's one of them?"

"The Lear's macaw is one of those macaw species that is rare, endangered and targeted by smugglers," explained Alejandra, "Though it is not as rare as the far more critically endangered Spix and glaucous macaws, two of the top priority macaws we at Rio aim to preserve and establish breeding pairs of, it is still an endangered species. We have a colony of those birds living in the sandstone cliffs of Bahia; we have found a female Lear's macaw far north of that region and we now have her held at our Aviary back in Rio until we can find her a mate and establish a breeding pair of Lear's macaws on our sanctuary, the Blu Bird. At the same time, we are trying to establish another breeding pair of Spix macaws and a pair of glaucous macaws and Amazon flying foxes, a large bat also close to the brink of extinction, to start steering their species away from that brink. Luca Azulson, a chiroptologist or bat studier, is tracking down a female Amazon flying fox in our city while one of my colleagues, Francisco Pablo is tracking down a male glaucous macaw and female Spix macaw in the United Kingdom under the ownership of a young man named Brandon."

"Br-Br-Brandon? Oh I know him," said Audrey, "H-h-h-he's my international Sk-Sk-Skype friend who owns two blue macaws l-l-like me, n-n-named Sirius and Aurora. We-we-we often chatted and h-h-he is now doing a m-m-masters degree in bird c-c-c-conservation," then she turned to Milo as he wheeled the trolley full of finished plates and cutlery to the kitchen, "So that means h-h-he has to go to R-R-R-Rio to meet this female macaw?"

"I'm afraid so," said Alejandra, "you see, it is important that every individual of an animal species that is endangered by put into conservation..."

"But w-w-we have only b-b-been s-s-separated for s-s-six years because of that cr-cr-cruel sister of mine, Ana," protested Audrey, "S-s-second, we have work to d-d-do here and thirdly, w-w-we are not air travel fans. S-s-such travel is FAR t-t-too expensive..."

"Don't worry, Audrey," assured Alejandra, "It's all arranged and the costs are covered. But it is important that Milo is transported to Rio to pair up with the female Lear's macaw for the sake of their species."

As she said this, the waiter came in with Alejandra's order, orange juice and kangaroo meat pizza. Audrey gazed in surprise at the Brazilian lady's order.

"You like k-k-kangaroo meat?" she asked, "But you're fr-fr-fr-from Brazil."

"I have always wanted to try kangaroo meat," said Alejandra as she took up her knife and fork and began to cut out a piece of the pizza, "Unfortunately, it is not part of our cuisine in Brazil as we obviously do not have kangaroos in Brazil except in enclosures perhaps," she then put a piece of the pizza in her mouth and began to mumble with delight on the taste as she chewed it. As she dug into the pizza, Milo appeared and perched onto Audrey's shoulder, a sad look on his face.

"Okay, y-y-you enjoy your k-k-kangaroo pizza and I-I-I'll have a t-t-talk with M-M-Milo here," said Audrey and with that, she left with her Lear's macaw to a private spot.

Once they were somewhere quiet and private in the restaurant, Audrey began to talk with Milo as he wrote a question on a sheet of paper.

'Will I return here from Rio?'

Audrey read the question and gazed at Milo sadly. "W-w-well, if Alejandra w-w-wants to h-h-have you for conservation purposes th-th-then m-m-maybe not," said Audrey to Milo's disappointment and he bowed his head to show it. Audrey placed a comforting hand on it.

"W-w-well, you h-h-have been h-h-helping m-m-me to develop my sp-sp-speech skills during the f-f-four years we had together, Milo," she said, hoping to cheer the Lear's macaw up, "And I am st-st-still UTTERLY astonished as to how y-y-you managed to tr-tr-travel over 2000 miles t-t-to find me, l-l-learning to fly in the process, s-s-so now I-I-I think this could be the t-t-time to move on. F-f-f-further, my older sister Ana is s-s-still causing me trouble and I don't w-w-want you caught up in it again."

Milo raised his head and looked at his owner. Slowly, he agreed to the opportunity since, after all, it was a once-in-a-lifetime one. After showing his agreement, Audrey stretched out her arm and allowed the macaw to climb onto it. Then she stood up and left the area to speak to Alejandra about her decision.

"I th-th-think it will d-d-d-do you g-g-good to meet another macaw of your k-k-kind as well," said Audrey as she left with him.

Then after returning to Alejandra, Audrey told her of her decision to transfer Milo to Rio, though she had been utterly reluctant to do this for she had missed him for so long but she knew she had to do it for Milo was part of a rare species after all. Then after this, like Brandon did in London in the UK, Audrey packed her things, checked her passport and went with Alejandra and Milo to Sydney International Airport to catch a plane to Rio.

Rio

Back in the titular Brazilian city, the activities of the citizens continued to flow by as usual with people working and tourists sightseeing. In one area of the city lived another woman and she was studying to be a bat biologist and conservationist. Her name was Joanna and she had just completed her degree in bat biology, also called chiroptology. She had tanned skin, was slender and her hair was dark brown and long and her eyes were blue. Living with her was a large bat which Joanna kept in a cage, that bat hanging from the top of the cage by her feet as all bats did and reading a book. However, this bat was NOT Joanna's pet for bats cannot be kept as pets for health reasons but Joanna was vaccinated and was able to care for a bat. This bat was a female Amazon flying fox, the very same flying fox Joanna took into her care as a pup those 12 years ago but now the bat, named Ahoska (formerly Ginger), had grown up just like Sirius, Aurora and Milo the macaws. Ahsoka was a beautiful Amazon flying fox with a slim build, her fur was a glossy ginger orange and the mane of fur around her neck was a darker ginger. Ahsoka sported pigtails which she kept tied for tidiness purposes. The hair tips of her pigtails and her mane were tipped a deep shade of red and Ahsoka also had a white patch on her belly. Her eyes were coloured cyan and like all flying foxes, Ahsoka sported a dog-like face with a conical snout, ears pointing straight up and a set of sharp fangs which she used to butcher the flesh of fruit and plant material. Ahsoka's wings, like all bats, were giant webbed hands and the colour of the membranes was charcoal black. Ahsoka had pretty much learned the skills a flying fox could learn at the hands of Joanna including roosting from overhangs and eating fruit. However, Ahsoka had one massive setback: she could not fly at all and has NEVER flown a single flap in her life, ever since she was a pup. Joanna had been trying to get Ahsoka to fly but the bat wouldn't have it and would always refuse. Joanna couldn't understand why Ahsoka wouldn't fly but she believed that the trauma from those poachers might have something to do with it. Or Ahsoka was just too comfortable in her care. Either way, it was not a good thing at all as bats were flying mammals that were meant to fly and live in elevated habitats like the canopy of the trees in a jungle or the roof of a cave. Joanna had hoped that her foster bat would learn to fly sooner or later, especially if an important chapter were to come along, and that chapter was on the horizon for the pair. When Joanna went out, she would take Ahsoka around in her cage and sometimes have her ride on her shoulders though not for too long. The pair went about like this during their adventures in Rio and at one point, Ahsoka had even met Blu and Jewel on the Blu Bird Sanctuary before they had their chicks, but she kept her inability to fly a secret though Blu thought it was unusual for a bat to remain in a cage all the time despite having spent the first 15 years of his own life grounded. Nonetheless, he didn't question Ahsoka about this and continued his life as Jewel's mate.

One morning, Joanna did her usual morning routine. She woke up, had a shower and tended to her foster bat Ahsoka by giving her some fruit, among them her favourite fruit, dragonfruit which Ahsoka loved. The flying fox would take the fruit pieces into her wings and eat them while Joanna went to get her own breakfast. Then as soon as Ahsoka had finished eating, she would open the door of her cage and climb out for her daily morning exercise. Joanna had lined overhead clotheslines and sturdy nets of her living room for her foster bat to practice climbing and roosting, even hanging pieces of fruit for Ahsoka to access herself but despite this setup, Ahsoka still refused to learn to fly. In fact, she hated the idea of flying which kept the flying fox to the overhangs and the ground and out of the air. As Ahsoka continued her daily morning climbing exercise, Joanna would get prepared for work. At times, however, Ahsoka can get a little mischievous.

As Joanna booted up her laptop, Ahsoka, with a mischievous grin on her muzzle and a piece of mango in her wing-thumbs, sneakily clambered the netting to above Joanna's head while she was preoccupied with the device and released the piece. The mango fell through the air and bopped Joanna on the head. Joanna shot an annoyed glare at Ahsoka as she uttered a small titter and climbed to a corner.

"Oi," she said, her hand on her head where the mango piece hit, "We shall have no appalling table manners up there, thank you very much, Ahsoka, especially when I am on my laptop. The last thing I want is this thing broken from one of your fruit drop tricks."

Ahsoka gazed warily at the laptop and agreed to this. Though she had always been careful not to accidentally hit the laptop, she had done once or twice and if that were to happen, Joanna would absolutely NOT be pleased. Ahsoka then climbed down to Joanna as she opened up the internet on her laptop.

"Do you remember Blu, Ahsoka, the Spix macaw that spent most of his life in Minnesota in the US with his owner Linda?" she asked the ginger flying fox. Ahsoka nodded to this question.

"Well, like you, Blu remained grounded throughout that entire time," said Joanna, "But when he came here to Rio to meet his mate Jewel, he had learned to fly and escape those wretched smugglers' plane with Jewel who had suffered an injured wing and he is now flying happily in the jungle of the Blu Bird Sanctuary."

Ahsoka gazed on in wonder as Joanna continued, "So if Blu had learned to overcome his fear of flying, maybe you can too so that you can eventually live in the jungle on the Sanctuary with your bird friends. After all, flying foxes are TREE animals, not animals meant for living on the forest floor."

Ahsoka just gazed back at her carer with a daunted face, clearly against the idea of learning to fly. She was essentially like the flying fox version of Blu, grounded under human care. Then as Ahsoka let her mind wander into thought as to how Blu had learned to fly, Joanna sighed in disappointment and resumed looking at her emails on the laptop. Just then, a knock at the door to the pair's house alerted them. Joanna shot a look of wonder at the door, immediately stood up and went over to it, Ahsoka looking on. Joanna opened the door and there stood a man dressed in a scientist outfit and wearing a pair of glasses, but it wasn't Tulio from the Aviary. It was another man for he had jet black hair and a more rounded face.

"Hi, are you Joanna?" asked he before he showed her his name tag on a necklace called a lanyard, "My name is Dr Luca Alves, lead chiroptologist at Tulio's Aviary. Can I come in? I have come here looking for her over there," he pointed to Ahsoka waiting on her computer chair. Joanna followed his point and turned back to the man named Luca.

"Sure, come in," she said and allowed Luca to enter the house, which he did. Once he was in, Joanna closed the door and looked on as Luca approached Ahsoka to examine her closer. Ahsoka quivered a little at the approaching stranger.

"Please, take it easy," said Joanna, "Ahsoka doesn't take too kindle to strangers."

"I'm not going to just grab her," replied Luca, "I just want to have a look at her," then after taking some time to admire Ahsoka and her physique, a smile formed on his face, "Wow, she is perfect."

"Perfect?" asked Joanna while Ahsoka looked on. Luca turned to her with a smile.

"Yes," said he, "She will be part of the conservation project for the Amazon flying fox back at Tulio's Aviary."

Confusion swept through Joanna and Ahsoka at this sentence.

"Wait, I thought Tulio's Aviary specialised in taking care of birds, rescuing them from smugglers and their conservation," replied the former.

"They do but they also have minor divisions within the group that deal with non-avian animals as well," explained Luca, "with bats being one of them... my department, that is anyway, as I was saying, the reason why I have come here from Tulio's Aviary, is to see your foster bat there..." he nodded to Ahsoka. Joanna went over to her.

"Why Ahsoka?" she asked. Luca's smile widened.

"Well, you see, you have a VERY special bat under your foster care," he began to explain, "very special indeed. She is part of an EXTREMELY rare and critically endangered species of flying fox, the Amazon flying fox which is as rare as the glaucous macaw. In fact, Ahsoka could well be the last female of the species."

"Really?" asked Joanna while Ahsoka looked on in wonder. Joanna then extended an arm to Ahsoka and she flipped upside down onto her head and clutched her foot claws onto her arm to be carried.

"Yes," said Luca, "But not the last individual of all. We have recently found a male Amazon flying fox and have brought him to the Aviary, along with those two Spix macaws, the female glaucous macaw and the female Lear's macaw and he is currently waiting there now until we find him a female. Now that I have found Ahsoka in your care, the next thing we gotta do is get Ahsoka to Tulio's Aviary, pair her up with the male and establish a breeding pair of Amazon flying foxes and so save the species of bat from going completely extinct."

"That sounds great," said Joanna, "But I have a bit of a problem."

"What's that?" asked Luca.

"Ahsoka here is able to climb around an environment like all flying foxes," explained Joanna, "as you can see, I have tied up clotheslines and nets to allow her to do that," she gestured to the strings and nets she had hung about the room to which Luca admired, "she can also hang from her feet and roost, but she cannot fly. In fact, she had NEVER flown a single flap in her ENTIRE life ever since I found her as a pup all those years ago."

"Really?" asked Luca, "Has she suffered any permanent injuries to her wings or anatomical flight apparatus at all?"

"No, not even a scratch or a rip," said Joanna as Ahsoka spread her wings while hanging from her arm, "and I have been trying to get her to fly countless times but she just ABSOLUTELY refuses, and I don't know why she won't get airborne. I believe the trauma caused by the poachers could have something to do with it..."

Luca then picked up Ahsoka from her arm and began to examine her wing membranes. Ahsoka, disliking this, began to squirm.

"Every bat I have come across has always been able to fly," said Luca, "Except if they have serious and permanent injures to their wings and associated structures which in that case would render them grounded for life," he then examined the web of skin on Ahsoka's massive left hand as she continued to squirm, "But I don't see any damage to your foster bat's wings at all, proving your point," he then took Ahsoka in his hands and faced her forward.

"Um, what are you doing?" asked Joanna.

"But injuries aside, every bat has an instinctive urge to flap their wings when they are in the air," said Luca, "similar to flying birds like macaws, and since her wings are intact, she SHOULD be able to fly..." he then tossed Ahsoka into the air to the alarm of her carer, hoping that she would start flapping her wings. However, the only flapping Ahsoka did was flailing in the air for a few feet before dropping to the ground. Luca looked on, feeling immediately guilty, "well... um... they should do..."

Ahsoka then struggled to her feet and wing-thumbs and shot the bat doctor a glare.

"What are you TRYING TO DO, DUMMY!?" she yelled though to the humans they were merely bat squeaks. Joanna immediately picked her up and checked on her.

"We're gonna have serious problems if she doesn't learn to fly sooner or later," said Luca with a sigh, "Especially when she has to have pups to help add numbers to the dwindling Amazon flying fox population. In the wild, flight is a VERY essential skill for a bat to have. Without it, they can't forage, perch onto overhangs like the branches of a tree in the canopy or on the roof of a cave and in mother bats, carry their pups and if your bat doesn't learn to fly, she could seriously endanger her species further..."

As he said this, Joanna returned Ahsoka to her cage to allow her to calm down from the slight shock of being thrown before turning to Luca.

"Okay, I'll bring Ahsoka to the Aviary to meet her future mate," said she and with that, she picked Ahsoka's cage up, "and we'll see where we'll go from here. Will Ahsoka and her future mate be meeting alone?"

"Um, no," said Luca, "they will be meeting each other alongside the glaucous, Spix and the Lear's macaws. The male bat is being held in an artificial chamber with that female glaucous macaw, the female Lear's macaw and the Spix macaw brother and sister. Francisco and Alejandra from Tulio's bird conservation team, the Project: Blu Bird, are abroad tracking down the male glaucous macaw and female Spix macaw in the United Kingdom and the male Lear's macaw in Australia so that they will be brought here for conservation purposes as well, and your bat will be put into the chamber with those three to meet their future mates together."

That ignited a little excitement within Ahsoka and it dispelled what's left of the shock of being thrown across the room by Luca in his attempt to get her to fly.

"I'm gonna be meeting my future mate alongside some rare macaws?" she said to herself, "That's cool."

"That sounds great," said Joanna in equal excitement, "A multi-date."

Luca nodded in agreement and as soon as Joanna was ready and had packed a few things for the short trip to the Aviary, she followed Luca from her house with Ahsoka in her cage, locked the door and then travelled to Tulio's Aviary in his car.

Unlike the macaws, Ahsoka only had a short drive from where she was raised to Tulio's Aviary for she had not beein captured by smugglers and taken abroad unlike Milo, Sirius and Aurora when they were young.