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It was suffice to say that Tommy hated the water. But to go into more detail, it would also be fair to say that Tommy had an intense loathing for water normally reserved for feelings towards a man who slept with your wife, poured sand into your gas tank, bumped into you while using a urinal, and finally snored obnoxiously when you were forced to sit next to him on an eight hour long flight to your in-laws. Water began this mess...stranded for days on the ocean, waiting for death. It made matters worse when he was confused as food by a large frog while in the water...and finally bellyflopping into it after being startled by an ill-tempered octopus. It was no wonder that he was staying very far away from it...notably spending much of his time gliding around the forest area.

But once he was in the air though, those troubling thoughts quickly melted away...leaving him with a rather nice natural high. It was so nice just to soar around...he had been practicing since his wings were strong enough after his change, and he finally thought he got the hang of it. The nice thermals he had been catching hadn't hurt matters either. It was about this time though as he was flying rather high for his body mass that an echolocation burst of the ground gave him a rather curious picture. The bat-man grinned broadly, recognizing the figure lazing about on a tree. Instantly he banked softly, angling himself to flip around so that he could land on the tree. And damn, did he make it look easy as he lilted down onto a high branch after circling a few times to lose altitude. He landed upright easily. "Hey RICHARD!" he yelled out to the semi-dozing cat...glad to be out of reach of her tentacles before loosening his grip on the branch to allow himself to swing upside down.

Tommy's beady black eyes went wide as a loud snarl reached his radar-like ears. Well...this is a different side of Richard, he thought dumbly as his human mind went blank on just what to do. The bat too, was kind of surprised at first...though when the big beastie began going for the trunk of the tree, looking like she was going to climb up there and rip his head off...well...then he became unstuck. With a startled squeak, he let go of his perch, sending him flitting madly down as he tried to power his flight only by flapping...which obviously did not end well. All he really did was put himself into a spin which slightly softened the blow. A bellow of "********!" was cut short as he hit the ground.

He lay still for a moment, breathing deeply as he tried to get his wind back. "Goddamnit..." he muttered out into ground before slowly 'standing' on all fours and looking up at Richard sheepishly while rubbing his head with a wing.

"Goddamn, Richard, what bug crawled up your a**?" he asked, now getting slightly annoyed at her reaction. He was expecting her to be happy for him! Defying the laws of gravity doesn't happen every day! He muttered inaudibly to himself as he stretched out his wings and hopped from side to side in order to work out a kink that had developed in his back. With a final shake of his head he glanced back up to Richard. All in all, he knew what was wrong with Richard...the cat was slowly creeping into her brain without her even noticing it. At this thought, the frown slowly melted away only to be replaced by his slightly goofy grin.

"Up to forty-five minutes if I've got thermals," he said proudly, "think I'm getting better at this."

"Now...you still look like you want to eat me...stop it."

"...I don't shriek!" he yelled out...but then paused as he actually listened to himself. "..." he paused as he worked to control his voice. "...better?" he asked in more-or-less in his normal voice before shaking his head with a sigh, hating the way he sounded now. "Yeah...wait..no! I've been getting better at flying you a**," he said, his face breaking out in a razor-filled grin. "Wanna see?" he asked, as excited as a child at Christmas as he bat-walked a little closer to the tree.

Tommy grinned broadly as he bat-walked nearer to her tree. "Sick!" he said happily as he began climbing up the tree quickly, using his handish-feet and thumb claws to quickly scale the side of Richard's tree. As he reached the branch he initially perched on before his embarrassing fall, he glanced back down at Richard with that same grin. "Alright...alright, check this out..." he said, his excitement only gaining.

And then, surprisingly, he didn't screw up in front of Richard as he used his powerful upper-body to launch himself into the air. And then, he was airborne...and gliding quite nicely. Sadly though, there were no thermals around him at the moment so although he was gliding well, he was noticeably losing altitude. He was able to stay airborne for a few moments though, which was impressive given the low altitude he started off at. He didn't want to just fall on his face in front of Richard though, so he decided to end it with some pizazz. With a loud grunt of effort, he pulled himself up and entered into a loop before finally settling down with a few flits onto the ground in front of Richard's tree.

"Tadaaa!" he exclaimed while posing dramatically...well...as dramatic as a bat can.

Tommy had been aware of Richard's territorial tendencies...since, yaknow...he fell out of tree after being scared into thinking she'll eat him. But he also thought she had invited him to her tree via her invitation to fly. So, he had no idea about her internal struggle not to bite his head off...figuratively he would hope. At her applause though, he gave a deep bow, lowering his head to her. "Danke, danke...I'll be here all week," he said with a grin before looking back up to Richard. He really was proud of himself for how his hard work had payed off. So much in fact that his thoughts of insurrection had somewhat faded to the background of his mind.

"Now...are you going to stay up there all day in your tree?" he asked in a conversational tone, really wanting to talk to Richard...but feeling slightly odd having to talk up to her.

Tommy really was trying, he had spent so much time as more or less a cripple that the sudden liberation of the skies had taken Tommy like a drug. In fact, with the sun nearly set now he had the sudden itch to take into the skies once more. He hoped that his little display for Richard would be enough to hold him over for the time being...he really wanted to speak to Richard about certain things.

The bat-man grinned in time with Richard though...that is until she jumped down right next to him. At the leap, he skittered back on all fours with a barely audible squeak. It took him a moment to calm him down, panting slightly while grinning at Richard. "Goddamn...I dunno why, but that scared the s**t out of me," he said while chuckling nervously. "Nice execution though, I'd give you a 9.8," he nodded.

"So, what...you've just been hanging around here all day? You ah...wanna take a walk or something?" he asked, face getting a bit more serious...as serious as a bat's face could get anyway. He nodded in a direction up river, hoping that the sound of the water would muffle their voices for whatever bugs may be listening.