The Angry Birds Movie 2 Page 6

  “Those islands are filled with innocent birds and pigs!” Red couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe someone—a bird, no less—could be so coldhearted. Even if she did live on an island that was basically one giant refrigerator.

  “Not for long,” Zeta trilled as she strolled over to her balcony. “Sorry. Not sorry.” She laughed. “I’m truly not sorry! But I said it, and when it came out it just sounded so funny!” With that she flew over the balcony’s edge. Debbie tried to follow her, but instead fell over the ledge, letting out a scream.

  Red and Silver shared a devastated look. They were frozen, literally, watching the countdown to their friends’ demise.

  Mighty Eagle looked around what was left of his cave. His home was completely destroyed.

  “Dodged that bullet!” he said as he started to tidy. He wasn’t kidding himself though. He picked up his refrigerator and straightened a photo of himself before taking a seat at the kitchen table. “Home sweet completely destroyed home.” Mighty Eagle poured himself a hearty bowl of Mighty Eagle–brand cereal and began to eat. Then he caught his own reflection in a shattered mirror. He was taken aback by what he saw: a sad, lonely eagle eating cereal in his destroyed house.

  This wasn’t right, he thought to himself. Something had to be done.

  “This is all my fault! All of Bird Island is going to be gone,” Red said worriedly.

  Silver shook her head in disbelief. “Chuck . . .”

  “If I hadn’t dragged then into this, Chuck and Bomb would still be alive.”

  KABOOM!

  A huge explosion knocked down Zeta’s door! Through a cloud of debris, Chuck and Bomb triumphantly appeared!

  “We’re alive!!” they cheered in unison.

  “What in the— Really, guys?!” Chuck chortled.

  The force of Bomb’s explosion had sent Red’s frozen pool raft sailing. It had landed on top of Silver’s raft, making it appear like they’d been kissing.

  “Chuck?!” Silver cried out happily.

  “We thought you were dead!” Red was ecstatic.

  “Oh! And you immediately started doing this?!” Chuck scoffed.

  “Uh . . . ,” Red was confused.

  Silver realized what Chuck was implying. “No! Eww! We weren’t—”

  “I’m just gonna give you two a little space,” Chuck said, shoving Red away. He pecked Silver free from her ice shackles.

  Bomb popped Red’s pool raft, setting him free.

  “But . . . how did you guys not get burned up by the lava?” Red asked.

  “Funny you should ask,” Bomb said as he recalled what had happened.

  Chuck and Bomb screamed as they were being lowered into the lava pit. Their whole bodies were submerged into the scorching, simmering cauldron. Red looked on in complete horror. But then—a single wing broke the surface! With a huge gasp, both Bomb and Chuck rose from the lava! They used the chain to jump onto the platform below, and then they shook themselves off. Lava flew off them like drops of water from a shaking dog.

  “Pig Snot!” Chuck and Bomb cheered as the last bits of lava flew off them.

  “That stuff is no joke,” Bomb added as they fist-bumped. They had covered themselves in Garry’s miraculous fire protectant, which had kept them safe from the lava!

  After hearing their story of survival, Silver lunged at her brother and gave him a giant hug. And then something incredible happened: Red joined in the hug. “I love you guys,” he said.

  Then everyone joined in on the massive group hug; even Courtney, Garry, and a squeaking garbage can with arms hopped into the action.

  “Ahh, just in time for the team hug!” The garbage can was Leonard! “Mmm . . . feels good,” he continued. “Okay, that’s enough.”

  Everyone pulled away except for Red, who wouldn’t let go of Chuck and Bomb.

  “Okay, Red, you can let go now,” Bomb said gently, but he was still clamped on like a vise. “Red, are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” Red finally replied. “You know, just trying to get some of that Pig Snot for myself.”

  “How ’bout some Chuck snot?” Chuck offered Red.

  “No, no. I’m good.”

  “Uh, guys? This clock is counting backward,” Bomb said, pointing to Zeta’s countdown on the flat-screen TV.

  “That’s how long we’ve got till Zeta destroys both our islands,” Silver explained.

  Things were starting to feel very real. The timer was counting down, and every second was a second closer to the destruction of their homes.

  “Red. Red! What are we gonna do?” Chuck panicked.

  “Well, you know, I think, umm . . . I think . . . ,” Red stammered. He didn’t know what to do, but then he looked at Silver and knew exactly what they needed.

  “I think . . . I think we should listen to Silver,” he said confidently. “Silver, what are you thinking?”

  Silver was taken aback by Red’s change of heart. “Well,” she said as she scoped out the superweapon. Suddenly, Silver had a plan!

  From Zeta’s balcony, Silver and the heist crew looked over the room with the superweapon. Ice balls filled with lava rolled past them.

  “That’s the heart of the superweapon,” Silver explained. “And if you look closely, you can see that the base is a giant pressure chamber. If we destroy that, guys, we could disable the whole superweapon!”

  Silver could see that the entire team was listening to her every word. “Only problem is: it’s surrounded by armed patrol guards.” She pointed to the eagle guard patrols below them.

  Bomb raised his hand. “I can take out the guards.”

  Everyone looked at Bomb with surprise, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “We also have to deal with all the security cameras,” Silver added.

  “I’ll take care of the cameras,” Chuck chimed in as he zipped out of view for a second. He returned in a flash but now was wearing spy gear. “Don’t even worry about it.”

  “Red, you and I have to get ourselves encased in one of those ice balls and roll it down the track to take out the weapon,” Silver said, gesturing to the lava-filled ice balls that were rolling down the production line.

  “Okay, uh, sure,” Red agreed.

  “Leonard,” Silver said, turning to him, “see the ice-ball track leading to the pressure chamber? Okay, follow that orange lava tube up to that switch lever. Pulling that lever will create a ramp so that when Red and I roll down in the ice ball, we’ll be launched through the air at the perfect trajectory to take out the superweapon.”

  Silver’s eyes were aglow. Through Silver Vision, she could see every element of the plan coming together. She stood in front of the crew. She was ready to give them the pep talk they deserved.

  “We all have different strengths, but if we work together, we’re way more powerful than any of us would be on our own.”

  Chuck gasped. “Oh! Just like Super String!”

  “That’s right!” she cheered. “Now go!”

  Chuck, Bomb, and the pigs bolted off, eager to do their part of the plan. Red stayed behind and stared at Silver awkwardly.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Uhh, nothing. It’s just, uh, I think you’re smart,” Red said. It physically hurt him to dish out a compliment, but he was genuinely impressed.

  “Oh. Thank you.”

  They stood in awkward silence for another moment.

  “Anyway, let’s do this!” Silver exclaimed, breaking the tension. They took off after the rest of the crew.

  Chuck, in full ninja mode, began his part of the plan. He zipped around the superweapon main floor, dodging guards and security cameras.

  Through his walkie-talkie, Chuck could hear Silver speaking to him. “Chuck, let us know when you’ve disabled the cameras.”

  Chuck spotted one of the security cameras and got an idea. From his pocket he pulled out a pack of crayons and a stack of sticky notes. A few moments later, his idea came to life.

  Eagle guard Carl was watching video f
eed from the security cameras. Something odd caught his eye.

  “Huh? Hey, Jerry? Come here, look at this.”

  Carl and Jerry took a hard look at one of the monitors. There was a sticky note with a stick drawing of an eagle guard covering one of the feeds. They leaned in to get a better look and could see the word “normal” scrawled on the note in crayon. Moments later, every single one of their live feeds had a stick figure eagle on it. Chuck’s plan had worked! It was a lot for the bird-brained guards to ponder.

  Red and Silver were crawling their way through the air vents toward the superweapon.

  “So why do we have to be inside the ice ball?” Red asked.

  “In order to hit our trajectory, we have to be going sixty-five miles per hour at launch. Without us inside, the ice balls can only hit forty-five. We’re gonna have to run on the inside to increase its overall speed,” she explained.

  “Why didn’t you just team up with Chuck? He’s faster than me.”

  “Nope. He’s too light.”

  “Why not Bomb then? He’s heavier than me.”

  “Too slow. You’re perfect,” she said. Suddenly the words “you’re perfect” were left in the air. Red looked up at Silver with wide eyes.

  Silver leaned in close to Red.

  CRRACK!

  Silver punched through a grate that was directly behind Red’s head.

  “Are you sure about this?” Red asked as they peeked out of the vent.

  Below them was a dark, swirling chasm. They needed to jump into it in order to be processed into an ice ball. It looked more than dangerous. It looked deadly.

  “Cameras are covered,” Chuck’s voice cut through the walkie-talkie.

  In the meantime, Bomb was sneaking his way from ice column to ice column on the superweapon floor. His overall roundness didn’t help his stealth, but he was hoping his positive thinking would.

  Bomb started singing quietly to himself, “No one can see me, light on my toes. I’m sneaking. I’m sneaking. I’m sneaking up real quiet. Who took you out? I don’t know, ’cause I didn’t hear them coming ’cause they snuck up on me. . . .”

  “Bomb, we are in position, we need you to take out those guards,” Silver instructed him over the walkie-talkie.

  “Copy that.”

  Bomb began sneaking around the room but was becoming more and more nervous. “C’mon, Bomb. Hold it together,” he reminded himself. He definitely didn’t want to explode right then!

  Some of the guards had noticed a very round dark shape trying to hide behind a very light rectangular shape. They started to come after Bomb.

  “You can do this, Bomb,” he encouraged himself. “Just take ’em out. Just take ’em out!”

  Being as tough as he could be, Bomb heroically stepped out to face the guards and immediately took them out . . . to celebrate. The party was packed, and Bomb was having a great time with the eagle guards.

  “Thanks for taking us out, man!” one of the guards said gratefully.

  Bomb had misunderstood the “take them out” part—Silver had meant that they needed to be taken out of the game, but Bomb understood it as taking them out to a party!

  “Ha ha ha! It’d be even greater if we had some pigs in a blanket!” Bomb said loudly before whispering into his walkie-talkie, “I repeat: we need pigs in a blanket!”

  In the main superweapon room, Leonard, Courtney, and Garry were a little confused about what they had just heard on the walkie-talkie.

  “That’s gotta be our cue, right?” Leonard wondered.

  The three piggies dashed across the icy floor. They were all wearing sleek speed skater outfits.

  At full speed, the pigs skated up the slide toward their target.

  Poor Chuck’s plan was starting to come unglued. One of his sticky notes had fallen off a security camera. When he tried to stick it back on, it fell off again! The ice was too slippery. Desperate to get the note to stick, Chuck licked the security camera. Much to his surprise, his tongue stuck to the ice! He struggled to get free, but there was nothing he could do except dangle there helplessly like a sitting duck.

  “Yes! Yes! Yes! Ha ha!” Zeta cheered as she and Debbie entered the control room. “Three minutes to launch!”

  Zeta and Debbie began dancing with glee.

  “This kinda feels like New Year’s Eve, right?” Zeta asked.

  “Yes!” Debbie agreed. “Let me go get the party box!”

  Debbie ran back to Zeta’s lair to get the box but was shocked to discover that their prisoners were missing!

  “Zeta! We have a problem!” she yelled from the balcony, showing Zeta the discarded pool floaties.

  “Ahh! Glenn, begin the launch sequence! Now!” Zeta commanded.

  “Initiate launch sequence.” Glenn pulled a lever, then quietly muttered, “We have a countdown sequence for a reason.”

  “Excuse me?” Zeta bellowed. “Are you getting smart with me right now?”

  Glenn straightened up and pulled more levers.

  Red and Silver knew that time was almost up. They were poised and ready to jump into the gaping hole below them.

  Silver began their countdown. “Three . . . two . . . one!”

  They jumped, falling down into the darkness as an ice ball formed around them.

  “We did it!” Red couldn’t believe it.

  Back in the bar, the eagle guards’ walkie-talkies crackled to life.

  “Attention, all eagles!” Debbie’s voice filled the room. Bomb became very nervous. “The prisoners from Bird Island have escaped,” she continued.

  The eagles jumped up and rushed out of the party. They had to find those prisoners!

  “Guys! Guys! Woah! Hold on!” Bomb pleaded. “We’re not done hanging out and having a good time!”

  But no one was listening to Bomb. All the eagles were headed back to take out his friends. This time, however, they wouldn’t be taking them out to a party.

  Leonard and the pigs had just about pulled themselves up the ice slide high above the superweapon floor.

  “Okay, we’re in position, right on schedule!” Leonard said, eyeing the countdown clock on the wall.

  “Leonard, look!” Garry pointed at some lava-filled ice balls that were rolling toward them. The balls were rolling so fast that they knocked the piggies over like they were bowling pins. Leonard and Garry slid but managed to stop themselves by grabbing the edge of the ice slide. Courtney, on the other hoof, wasn’t so lucky. She was knocked all the way back down the slide and onto the main floor.

  “I’m okay!” Courtney’s voice rang from below.

  Getting ready for the first launch, Zeta could barely contain herself.

  “Right this way!” she trilled as she directed an ice ball into place. “Ha ha! Yes! It’s working! Bring me the launch button right now! Right now, right now!”

  Glenn brought her the launch button, which looked a lot like a stomp rocket.

  “Yeah! All right! Let’s start causing some hysteria.”

  “Yes, ma’am, just let me adjust the coordinates here,” Glenn said as he looked through a periscope and adjusted the launch button’s position.

  “All right! Six-five-four-three-two-and-one!” Zeta said quickly, then stomped on the launch button over and over again with all her might. “Bye, bye, birdies!”

  Three lava-filled ice balls sped through the air, past Red and Silver.

  “She’s firing the weapon!” Red yelled.

  “Run faster!” Zeta shouted back.

  The two birds picked up their pace, but so did Zeta.

  “More! More! More! Take that!” She laughed with every stomp of her foot.

  Many more lava-filled ice balls shot through the sky. They were all headed for Bird Island!

  Back on Bird Island, a mother bird, playing with her hatchling, stopped as she saw something ominous in the distance. Three young birds who were fishing on the pier stared agape at the sky. They saw it, too. A big bird family spending the day at the beach stopped what the
y were doing. Their smiles faded as they all saw the same thing in the sky. A giant ball of light was headed straight for them!

  “To the lifeboats! We’re under attack!” Judge Peckinpah instructed the villagers on Bird Island. Every bird was fleeing in terror—the island had changed from paradise to pandemonium in an instant!

  Things were just as terrifying over on Piggy Island. “Mandatory evacuation in effect! Clear island immediately!” a voice called out over a loudspeaker.

  At the superweapon site, Glenn was surveying the islands through a periscope.

  “All direct hits!” he declared while the engineers cheered.

  “Yes! Now, let’s open up my beachfront view.” Zeta smirked.

  Red and Silver hadn’t given up yet. They were running as fast as they could as the ice ball spun down the track.

  “We gotta break that weapon before she can fire again,” Red said.

  “Leonard, is everything in position?” Silver said into her walkie-talkie.

  “Sort of,” Leonard replied as he and Garry pushed on the lever for the track. “C’mon! We gotta raise this thing!”

  But as hard as they tried, they couldn’t get the lever to budge. Silver and Red were getting closer and closer to their launch point. Through Silver Vision, Silver could see that they were in the right place and their trajectory was correct.

  “Sixty-five miles per hour . . . ,” she said into the walkie-talkie. “Leonard, it’s now or never!”

  “It won’t budge!” Leonard cried.

  It was getting dire. Zeta was already planning her next target!

  “Hey! Hey! We ready to launch again?” she asked excitedly.

  “Yes,” Glenn said, checking through the periscope. “Let’s just clear these houses from your beachfront view.”

  There were only seconds to spare. Red and Silver needed to launch!

  “Garry, you don’t have any gadgets?” Red begged.

  “Leonard?!” Silver added, desperate for help.

  Leonard gasped. He realized something very important.