Pipp Petals. Did. Not. Cancel.
Zephyr Heights' most popular livestreamer was downright fuming as she paced back and forth in the staging room. Alone.
She wasn't supposed to be alone. She was supposed to be with her mom and big sister. She had no idea where Zipp was, but she knew where she was supposed to be; right here! In the wire rigging, ready to be 'floated' down to her seat so Pipp could perform her new song!
Frankly, Pipp didn't know what her sister could be up to, but she was certain that she knew how important this night was to her. No excuse was going to make up for this. She couldn't remember the last time that the castle went into lockdown and it wasn't a drill.
Her impatient hoof-tapping wasn't making things any better as she once again held her smartphone up to her ear after tapping 'Call' under Zipp's name in her contacts list. The speaker gave a ringing tone for several moments, before it finally stopped.
"You have reached the voicemail box of... 'Zipp Storm'... At the tone, please record—"
Pipp didn't bother, somewhat surprised her sister had even taken the time to set up her voicemail box.
Finally having enough of standing here hoping the evening and performance could possibly be salvaged, she now felt determination building inside her to get to the bottom of whatever stunt Zipp was pulling. Pocketing her phone, she pulled the door open and headed out into the hall. Heading to the elevator, she punched the button for the ground floor, having a pretty good idea of where she might be. The easy going elevator music did very little to temper Pipp's growing frustrations. She had a pretty good idea of where her sister was hiding, but was never sure how she got in there; it had been walled off since well before she had been born.
The elevator chimed, and the doors swung open. The castle was still in lockdown, but she figured she'd have no problem getting where she needed to go within the limits of the walls. Heading down the correct hall, she stopped in surprise when she saw the normally pristine carpet covered in dust, splinters, and rubble, and immediately saw why.
The guards, and likely her mom, had been one step ahead. The walled off entrance to the airship station had already been torn down, and caution tape had been set up. Ducking under the tape, Pipp passed through the doorway, and took a quick look around. Clearly, the guards had already looked around, and found nopony here.
But maybe they missed something. After all, no one knew Zipp like Pipp.
Stepping down the stairs, Pipp passed the ancient benches and advertisements, walking up to a double-pronged lever handle. She pulled it down, and the fans built into the ground started up. No doubt that had been a way to get parked airships airborne again with minimal energy. It would also explain how Zipp had gotten so amazingly good at gliding. Pushing the lever back up to its previous position, the fans slowly spun to a stop, and she continued on down the large room, towards a blackboard on wheels.
The board looked ancient, but the chalk-written mathematical equations clearly weren't; weeks old, maybe a little more, and Zipp had a head for that kind of stuff.
The large opening where the window used to be would be the prime spot for jumping out and gliding out, but she wouldn't get far this low down, even with the most favorable updrafts.
Pipp took a closer look at the opening, and spotted a steel ring bolted into the side of the frame. That didn't look ancient, and it also would serve no purpose with a window there. But if there were a rope attached, one could easily rappel down the side of the castle and cliff side.
Pipp's eyes widened at the possibility that just hit her brain. Did Zipp... Have others with her? Had she brought others into the castle?
The proverbial light bulb came on in her head as she immediately dug out her phone. She had insisted on Zipp installing her 'Family Tracker' app that would allow the royal family to find each other in an emergency, and based on how little Zipp used her phone, it was likely she had forgotten about it. Zipp's phone hadn't gone to voicemail in the last four times she had called, so it was still on. Now to just hope she had it on her and she was just ignoring it...
The app loaded, and Pipp pressed the big red button on the middle of the screen. Her phone sounded a ping, and immediately switched to a topographic map of the surrounding area, and sure enough, one marker was in the castle, and the other was two miles out into the mountains, almost straight out from the window, and slowly moving farther way.
Gritting her teeth, Pipp knew she was going to have to act, and fast. She quickly slid the tracker app to the background and opened ClipTrot and hit record.
"Pippsqueaks, I have to sadly confirm the rumor that is very likely spreading in the last few minutes; tonight's performance is canceled due to unforeseen circumstances. Something has come up, and though I have never canceled before, I swear that any and all ticket sales from tonight will be honored at a later date. You have my word as your Princess. Have the best of nights, because I am not. Catch you later."
Pipp ended the recording, uploaded it, then pocketed her phone, backing up from the window several paces, then went straight for it at a full gallop. Fast approaching the window, she waited until the last moment, then leapt over the windowsill into the night air, and spread her fluffy wings, catching the first updraft and went as fast as she could after her big sister...
Nice way to have pipp to be included this whole situation so it looks like she figured out what was going on kind of and she was looking for her sister of course she never really use her phone too much and the guards could not find her but pipp knows zipp so she went to the secret room and it looks like she realized that zipp have others with her and basically went down through the forest so the younger Pegasus is going to follow her older sister I wonder how she's going to react to the other ponies I guess we'll find out next time
The title of this chapter almost got me worried for a sec that this story was cancelled for some reason even with the incomplete tag.
11378188
No, if I canceled the story (has rarely happened in the past), then I'd mark it as such in the Status, not a chapter title, lol.
11378192
My bad, I can be quite a worrier at times.
I was wondering if we were going to get something like this or if our introduction to Pipp would be her catching up to and confronting Zipp and the rest of the group.
Excellent introduction for Pipp, by the way. And a clever explanation for how Pipp tracked down Zipp to the alley in the movie.
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It rarely happens, and it was due to either complete creative block, or near complete disinterest from my readers. Only once in my nearly eleven years on this site have I taken down stories completely, and that's only because personal feelings were getting very, very ugly.
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Still wondering how Pipp made it out of that wire rigging and out of the castle in canon.
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Same. Not to mention grabbing the crystal all while evading arrest.
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Got it.
11378204
Waited for the arresting officers to get her down, then used her mad social skills to get someone to do something that gave her a chance to escape while grabbing the crystal?
Yeah, that is super-vague, but it does serve as a start based on her skill-set.
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Arresting guards kept trying to take selfies with Pipp. That's how she got away.
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That could work, although with that additional specification I would prefer that she actively manipulated it so that those were in the one or two* right times and places for her to get the crystal (without being noticed?) and make her escape.
*Or more than that if she had to "walk them in" to the right spot or play for time until the crowd was behaving a certain way/had been cleared out.
There is a reason why Diplomacy and Bluff are good skills to have in D&D 3.5... actually this sort of thinking could be relevant to future chapters: it would be in keeping with the "the heroes are even more competent than in the movie" (You have Sunny willing to come to the station rather than pushing the 'release' button, and establishing up front to Hitch that when they are outside Hitch's jurisdiction he is NOT in charge... the increased competencies of the rest should be obvious.). As such, giving the performer who spends a lot of time streaming non-trivial amounts of social-fu could be a good way to go with things.
I'm curious to see how the confrontation will go.
I have to say, great job on this latest chapter. Clever way to get Pipp involved in this. And, yeah, she probably WOULD know Zipp better than almost any other pony alive with the POSSIBLE exception of their mother.
VERY much looking forward to more of this.
Pipp: "No talk, me angy."
This was cleverly done. I liked the way that Pipp gets involved here. Definitely gonna be *quite* interesting when she catches up to her sister and gets a clue as to what's going on here. XD