Pipp Petals: Pet Patrol
Chapter 1: Approximate "feline" as "sphere" to make the math easy.
Set a year or two before the G5 movie
"And before we log off today's stream," Pipp said, prancing around in a circle and flipping her wings, "I have a very sad thing, guys!"
A stream of emojis flooded the chat as Pippsqueaks reacted to the threat of something upsetting.
"A lost cat announcement." Pipp held up a photograph of a small black cat with gray wings. "This is Thunderhead. He's missing! Pippsqueak Pega Sue misses him so much! Please, if you see Thunderhead, let me know! He was last spotted off Sunset Avenue, not far from Vine. He likes chasing mice, taking naps, and..." Pipp's eyes widened "...and, ahem, yeah, not reading that last one. Please be sure to spay or neuter your pets to eliminate, ah, unwanted behaviors."
With a wave, a wing-flip, and a butt-shake, Pipp said, "That's all for today's stream, guys! Bye-bye! Pipp-pipp hooray!"
"And before we log off today's stream, guys," Pipp said, looking at some papers, "I have two very sad things."
More emojis flooded the chat.
She held up a photograph of another cat, being hugged by a tween filly, the cat making a murderous expression at the camera. "This is Sir Tibbles! He's missing from Central ZH, and PippFan3760 misses him so much! He likes chasing rats, naps in the sun, and—" she shot a glare at somepony off camera. "I told you to censor these!"
"Sorry."
"Ahem. Where was I?" Pipp showed a photograph of a green cat with darker-green wings. "And this is Mrs. Hiss. Pippsqueak Snow Cloud doesn't technically miss her, since she's a very mean cat, but since Snow's mom said he has to take good care of Mrs. Hiss, so Snow would like her back."
"Mom!" Pipp shouted. "There's something weird going on."
Haven said Hmmmm? from her spot in the jacuzzi. She didn't bother removing the cucumber slices from over her eyes. Water foamed and hissed around her.
"Since just last week, my stream has turned into a full hour of 'lost pet' announcements! I'm not getting to do any of my singing, my dancing, or pushing my product lines."
"A tragedy," Haven said. "A tragedy indeed."
Pipp flipped her hair. "Even if you don't care about my stream—"
"Hmmmm."
"—you should care about my Pippsqueaks, who are your subjects, Mom. Why are so many pets going missing? It's a mystery." Pipp paused and tapped her chin with a hoof. "Lost cat announcements. Only missing cats. Hmmmm..."
"Mmmm-hmmm," Haven said as the jacuzzi's power increased.
"It's a mystery..." Pipp said. "Why have we gone from one lost pet announcement a month to fifty a day?"
Haven started snoring.
As she snuck quietly out of the Royal spa, Pipp cranked the jacuzzi's temperature knob to extra cold.
"Oh, ew," Pipp said, picking her way along the filthy back alley. She delicately stepped around pools of muck and filth.
She played the flashlight around the corners and under the dumpsters.
Eyes. Hundreds of eyes. Vermin everywhere, watching her from the shadows.
No housecats hunting the rats and mice, no feral cats hunting the rats and mice, vermin were proliferating around Zephyr Heights' back alleys and basements.
What was going on?
"Mrrrr-oowowowow," called a cat from somewhere behind Pipp.
She spun in place, poking around with the beam of her flashlight. In the back of the alley, between two dumpsters, greenish eyes glowed.
"Mrrrreow?" said the cat.
Pipp approached and saw it was inside a wire live-capture trap. What appeared to be a mixture of mouse carcass, catnip, and a bottle of Parfum la Pipp baited the trap.
"Mr. Tinkles?" Pipp said, recognizing one of the lost cats from that day's stream. Pipp paused, trying to remember the brief description the Pippsqueak had sent in of this cat. "Oh, you're the one who likes to—"
He raised his tail and sprayed Pipp in the face.
"Zipp?" Pipp called. "Zipp, are you down here?"
Pipp lowered the woven basket into Zipp's retreat in the old hot-air balloon station deep below Zephyr Heights. Dawn sunlight streamed in through the broken stained glass.
"Pipp, I told you never to come down here. This is my sanctuary, my alone-place. I don't crash your streams, you don't come down here or tell anypony about this place. That's the deal. The sister covenant." Zipp sniffed. "Is that your new parfum? It's not going to sell well."
Pipp threw the empty trap at Zipp's hooves. "That belongs to you."
Zipp's eyes widened and her ears drooped. "No, it doesn't."
Pipp kicked the cage upside down. A metal plate was etched Property of Princess Zipp Storm. If found, return to the palace or drop in any post office. Return postage guaranteed.
"Oh," Zipp said.
"What are you wearing?" Pipp asked, looking at Zipp's outfit.
"It's my labcoat." Zipp brandished a clipboard. "I'm doing science. If you wear a labcoat and take notes, it's science, not screwing around."
"Meow?" came from behind a curtain. Pipp shot a fulminating glare at Zipp and yanked the curtain back. Fifteen cats in separate cages bleared sleepily back at her.
"Zipp!" Pipp shouted, stretching her wings wide into a T-pose. "What are you doing with my Pippsqueaks' cats?"
Zipp sipped from a coffee mug and then placed the mug on top of Pipp's head, in the middle of her gold circlet. Looking at her clipboard, Zipp said, "Ah, Mr. Puffpuff Squall," and pulled a calico cat from one of the cages.
Turning delicately to avoid spilling hot coffee on her mane, Pipp looked at her. Zipp cradled the small cat and looked at the clipboard. "What I'm doing," Zipp said, "is using the scientific method to restore magic—to restore flight—to the ponies of Zephyr Heights."
"You can't steal ponies' pets!"
"Science," Zipp said. "Cancer doctors do animal testing. Nopony listens to the ponies who complain about that."
Pipp winced, the word cancer echoing in her head as the worst memories of her foalhood flooded back to her. "That's a low blow."
"If you don't want my bone marrow anymore," Zipp said, "give it back."
"Cats!" Pipp snapped. "These are pets! Why not rats or something nopony cares about?"
"Something expendable, eh? Gimme your phone."
"Zipp!"
"Mr. Puffpuff Squall, here," Zipp said, looking at the clipboard, "got fifty micrograms of my latest mRNA recipe injected into each wing last week."
"What's mRNA?" Pipp asked.
"Magical restorative nourishing agent," Zipp said. Her feathers fluffed proudly: "Patent pending."
"I thought the patent office denied magical applications with extreme prejudice?"
"No, but it does require proof of function. Which is what I'm working on down here."
Pipp removed Zipp's coffee mug from the top of her head and pulled in her wings, since Zipp was ignoring the T-pose. And, Pipp had to admit, the thought of a medicine that could restore flight to ponies...
"Does it work?"
Zipp frowned. "Fifty is the highest dose I've tried yet," Zipp said. "I'm cautiously optimistic."
"You look dejectedly pessimistic."
"Time to be a scientific hero, little dude." Zipp placed the cat in what looked like a canvas hammock. Pipp studied it. The hammock was more of a sling, both ends meeting together at a hook. The hook was at the end of a long, long beam that angled upward to a pivot on a double A-frame. Past the pivot, the beam met a counterweight that appeared to be a huge cast-iron block.
"What is this?" Pipp asked, slowly realizing that if the hook holding the beam down was released, the counterweight would drop, the beam would swing up, and the hammock would end up pointing out the stained-glass windows, towards the forested hill beyond Zephyr Heights.
"It's an ancient Equestrian invention, from the Age of the Princesses," Zipp said. "You know that our ancient archives, deep in the catacombs, was once the ancients' Royal Library, right? When ZH was still called Canterlot?"
"Yeah..." Pipp said.
Mr. Puffpuff Squall meowed nervously.
"This device's name is quite unambiguous," Zipp said. "I have to use cats."
"Zipp..."
Zipp kicked the hook free and with creaking and grinding, the counterweight dipped and the long beam swung, and Mr. Puffpuff Squall left Zipp's lab at a respectable fraction of mach one and on an upward trajectory, his angry hiss fading quickly and strongly dopplered.
Zipp said, "It's a cat-apult." She pointed to a book on the shelf to one side that her horrified sister had missed.
A small cloud of pine needles rose in the distance.
"Mr. Puffpuff!"
"Look, check the book yourself. A cat-apult has to use cats." Zipp pointed her wing again before cranking on a winch to bring the throwing arm back into battery, the counterweight rising again.
"Zipp!" Pipp's voice was shrill as she read the book. "This isn't a cat-apult. It's a treb-uchet."
Pausing as she prepared to re-hook the firing mechanism, Zipp sighed. "What the heck is a treb? ...and where can I find them?"