Red woke up at 4:00 in the morning to the sound of someone knocking on her door. Very groggily and without thinking straight, she fell out of her nest and yelled out in pain. When Red got to the door, with bags under her eyes and her head feathers messed up, she found a teenage pig with short auburn hair and blue eyes standing at her doorstep with a bouquet of roses.

“Oh, sorry, sir," she said. “I must have the wrong house."

“I'm a woman," Red grumbled. The teenage pig raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I get that a lot."

“My bad, I see it now," the teenage pig apologized, and gave Red the bouquet. “I'm Courtney, I work for your man."

“My man?" Red asked, confused.

“Yeah, he wants us all to meet at that mountain shaped like an eagle's head for a top secret meeting. Don't tell anyone."

“I won't," Red assured her. “Let me just get ready... and put these in a vase. And he's not my man."

As Red went back inside, Courtney looked at her phone and texted a friend.

“Can't talk now, saving the world 😩"

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

Inside Mighty Eagle's cave, the heist crew, consisting of Red, Chuck, Bomb, Silver, Leonard, Courtney, and Mighty Eagle, gathered together to hear about the mission.

“Each of you has been selected because you're the best in your field..." Leonard began, “... that we could find. Your skills will be put to the test, facing this!"

Using a bamboo chute as a pointer, Leonard dramatically revealed at a photo of Eagle Island on a screen, and Bomb and Chuck stared in amazement as Silver took notes.

“As you can clearly see this is a--"

“A volcano!" Red interrupted, snatching the pointer from Leonard's hoof. “‘A volcano' is what my assistant was going to say."

“‘Assistant?!' You're the assistant!" Leonard argued, trying to take the pointer back. But all they did was jockey over control of the team.

“They remind me of Mom and Dad," Chuck whispered to Silver, who raised her wing and cleared her throat, causing them to stop fighting.

“Actually, it's a composite volcano," she pointed out. “You can tell by the height and the clearly apparent vent clusters."

“Okay, forget I said volcano," said Red, letting go of the pointer. “This is a, um... it's a superweapon!"

“Weird, 'cause it looks just like a volcano," Bomb said.

“Yep, and here's the scary part: this is their psychotic leader!" Leonard announced, pointing at a new image that popped up on the screen. Noticing odd looks from the group, he turned to find an embarrassing selfie he had taken.

“Oops! Heh... How did that get there?" he chuckled nervously. Unfortunately, more selfies popped up on the screen. In some of them, he had weird outfits or filters on. “Next! Next! Next! Courtney!"

“I mean, you took em," she pointed out, clicking a remote to show another slide.

Red took the pointer, cleared her throat, and said, “This is their psychotic leader."

Everyone looked at an image of an eagle with violet feathers, icy green eyes, and a hairstyle that looked like a flower. Mighty Eagle screamed at the sight, causing everyone to stare.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, buddy, do you know her?" Red asked curiously.

“What, me?" he fumbled. “No! No, definitely not! Absolutely not. Never seen her before in my life. Who is that? I don't know!"

Mighty Eagle plastered a fake smile on his face, but they all knew he was lying.

“Not terribly convincing, but, uh, moving on," Red said, pushing Leonard away.

“Great! What's the plan?" Silver asked enthusiastically, which made Red nervous. She didn't have a plan! But she did her best to come up with one.

“Alright, here's what we're looking at, folks!" Red announced, as Courtney showed more images. “Step one: Travel undetected to Eagle Island. Uh, step two: we're gonna break into the superweapon. And step three: deactivate the superweapon, once we break in there..."

Silver wrote “*There is NO PLAN" in her notes.

“... hopefully before both our islands are destroyed and we all die. So that's, uh, that's it!"

Everyone gave Red a confused look. That was the best she could come up with?

“Right," Silver said, raising her wing, “so I just have a few questions."

“What? Why?!" Red asked, dumbfounded. “I explained everything, it's a foolproof plan!"

“Yeah. How do we sneak onto the island? What exactly is the superweapon? And how do we deactivate it?" Silver asked quickly. “And when you say ‘escape,' how do you plan to do that exactly? 'Cause I feel like this is a pretty crucial thing to figure out."

“I agree. Why isn't she in charge?" Leonard asked. Red hoped he was just pushing her buttons and didn't actually mean it.

“Told you she's super smart!" Chuck added.

“Hey, guys. Hold on a second, please..." Red couldn't get the attention back on her, though. Everyone was more interested in what Silver had to say.

“Mighty Eagle, do you have an Eagle Island map?" Silver asked, but he just backed up towards a wall.

“What? No! No, there's no map!" Mighty Eagle answered, but he accidentally bumped into the wall and unrolled a map that read, “THIS IS A MAP OF EAGLE ISLAND."

“Oh, it's a map!" Courtney said sarcastically. Silver got up, pushed Mighty Eagle out of the way, and pulled the map down from the wall.

“Wait a minute... Do you guys hear that?" Red asked the team.

“Do we hear what?" Chuck wondered.

“Sounds like a, um, like a whistle."

With the map tucked underneath her wing, Silver followed the noise to the cave's entrance, and when she saw what it was, her eyes widened with fear.

“Hey, guys...?" she alarmed as the rest of the team followed her, only to find a giant ice ball headed right toward Eagle Mountain!

“Run!" Leonard screamed as everyone tried to escape.

“Emergency exit, all the way down!" Mighty Eagle told everyone. Chuck got there first, only to dangle off the handle. Clearly, the exit was only helpful if you could fly like an eagle.

“Well, that's not safe," he said, and turned to the others. “Wait! Stop!"

Red didn't listen, and failed to notice the problem until she found herself at the very edge of a five hundred foot drop.

“Holy macaroni!" Leonard shouted, grabbing her before she could fall.

“Oh, boy," she said, and grabbed Chuck's wing so Leonard could pull them both back up.

“Everyone, hop on!" Mighty Eagle shouted, and everyone climbed on his back as he jumped off the mountain. The giant ice ball crashed into the cave, destroying the top of the mountain, and Mighty Eagle flew down to avoid getting hit along with the rest of the team. They watched as the ice ball finally landed in the ocean.

“Whoa, that was crazy!" Red said.

“We could have all died," Chuck added.

“Thanks for saving our lives, Mighty Eagle!" Silver said gratefully.

“Well, you can always count on--"

Suddenly, he crashed into a cliff, causing everyone to fall through the air. Everyone screamed until Red noticed the giant map Silver had and grabbed a corner.

“Everyone, grab the map!"

Luckily, the map was big enough that everyone used it as a parachute once they grabbed a corner or edge, except Bomb, who grabbed Chuck's legs.

“Hey, it's working!" Red shouted triumphantly, until they got nearly too close to the side of the cliff. “Left! Left! Lean to the left!"

Once they were out of danger, Red sighed in relief... which was short-lived.

“Please tell me that was the sound of your pants ripping!" Chuck begged Bomb.

“I don't wear pants!" Bomb pointed out.

“None of us wear pants!" shouted everyone else. They looked up to notice the map had a small rip in it, that just got bigger until...

“Uh oh," Leonard muttered. Everyone began plummeting towards the ground, and screamed for their lives.

Luckily, Silver was there to come up with a solution. She had a little trick called Silver Vision, and saw all the calculations for speed, angle, and trajectory to quickly formulate a plan to save everyone. Silver let go of the map, floated up in the air, dived down as fast as she could, and grabbed the hole in the map. She pulled a piece of Super String from her braids and tied it up to fix the hole.

The parachute was repaired in just the nick of time, causing everyone to fall into the ground without dying. Silver landed safely on her feet, while everyone else had more awkward landings.

Red was in shock, but noticed she had landed on top of Leonard, and they gazed at each other nervously. They looked away for a second, but found themselves staring again. At least, until Silver cleared her throat.

“Well, what do we have here?" Courtney asked rhetorically.

Red jumped off Leonard and answered, “Oh, I, um... You know, I mean, he was, um, just thanking me for, uh, saving everyone."

“I'm sorry, ‘saving everyone?'" Silver objected.

“Yeah! I mean, you know, the map was my idea."

“It ripped," Silver pointed out. Red was getting annoyed.

“Yeah, well, maybe that's 'cause there's one too many birds on the team!" Red said rather rudely.

While Red and Silver argued, Leonard brushed Red's molted feathers off his chest and noticed Courtney giving him two thumbs up. He just gave her an unamused look.

“Oh! My mountain!" Mighty Eagle wailed. Everyone looked up to find the head of Eagle Mountain completely decimated.

“We are in trouble," Leonard said.

“We gotta stop that superweapon!" Red and Silver said at the same time.

“Jinx!" Silver added, tapping the other female's shoulder gleefully. Red just groaned.

Red, girl, you got a lot to work with.

Until next time. 🌈