//------------------------------//
// Catching Up 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

A large shadow swept across the streets of the Stone District, Gerardo Guillaume's powerful wings carrying him smoothly between the sun and the ponies below. Sharpie flapped along behind him, panting, the inspector's gray body suited more for other things than rapid flight. He restrained himself slightly so she could keep up; she was the closest thing to an ally he had at the moment, and that was something he desperately needed.

"I believe we're almost to the hotel!" he announced, turning his head back over his shoulder. He meant it to be reassuring, but the strained glare on her face told him he was merely showing off his ability to talk while keeping that flight speed. Embarrassed, he locked his beak and looked straight ahead.

They landed shortly, Gerardo touching down with grace and padding smoothy to a stop, turning back to straighten a single errant feather. Behind him, Sharpie hit the ground hard, red-faced from exertion and panting heavily. Her wings took several seconds to fold, and if she were to try to talk, it wouldn't be hard for Gerardo to guess what she would say.

He would have to try even harder to go slow, he resolved, since the alternative - offering her a ride - would be thrown back in his face faster than a runaway cart on Ironridge's steep roads. Still, he couldn't be too hard on her. A partner with a badly-injured pride was better than none at all, even if she was also painfully slow, and he had been pressing to go fast.

While she recovered, he set his sights on the hotel that was their target, hoping eagerly Maple and Starlight would have found their way back after the previous night... assuming Selma had been telling the truth. He didn't trust the military unicorn one bit, but his words and the video feed he had seen on the security cameras were all he had to go on, and it was best to hope for the best.

Surrounded by dusty cobbled streets with busy ponies passing in both directions, Gerardo marched up to the hotel's outer desk. "Excuse me," he began, "can you...?"

The mare squinted at him, then interrupted. "Hey, I remember you! You were... oh! Excuse me, where are my manners? You were asking?"

"Erm... yes." Gerardo coughed; at least it was the same receptionist from before. "You may recall I had two friends with me, and we reserved a room together. Can you possibly tell me if they returned for the night? We have... become separated, and I am trying to find them."

"They sure did." The mare nodded. "Let me see..." She turned to a technical-looking terminal covered in brass pins, then looked up. "Their door was unlocked a little past midnight this morning, and then they checked out about one, one and a half hours ago. They had a message for you, actually. Said if you came asking for them that they were making their way toward Sosa." She shrugged, curling her lip. "Personally, I don't know what you'd want with ponies who are going to Sosa, but it's your life, not mine. They were with that Valey, too. Careful around her, she's rotten to the core."

"I... see. Many thanks." Gerardo nodded, then stepped back. "Well, it seems my business here has concluded, so farewell!"

He turned around and nearly bumped into Sharpie. "Well, this is fortunate!" he proclaimed. "It seems my friends are not only safe as of several hours ago, but are moving in the direction we need to go. I believe it would serve us best to be on our way to Sosa, then? So long as we follow the roads, we should see them if we pass them, and otherwise draw closer to our final destination."

Sharpie had managed to control her breathing enough to talk. "So you want to have another cross-country race all the way to Sosa. Is... is that it?" she puffed, face still red.

"Well..." Gerardo shuffled on his talons, pleasant mountain air stirring around him. "Now that we have confirmed my friends' recent safety, I should think we are in considerably less of a hurry. So long as we reach Sosa before sundown..." He blinked at the sun, more than halfway across the sky. "I imagine everything will be fine. And we don't want to miss anything by going too fast, of course."

Her pink eyes glared back at him, torn between frustration at her own slowness and his implication of it, but in the end, there was nothing she could do. "Thanks," she finally admitted. "Let's... go, then."

She took off at a slow walk, not even spreading her wings. Gerardo blinked, then followed, figuring he could press later. "Well, all right. I suppose we can walk. Though it will mean considerably longer until we catch up..."





Over an hour later, having scoured the roads of the Stone District and reasonably sure Starlight and Maple were ahead of them, Gerardo glided slowly along the surface of a dirt road as it wound into the Earth District, Sharpie flapping slightly more comfortably at his side. The pegasus was still getting worn out, he could tell, and his primary concern was thinking of a way they could stop to rest without triggering her dislike of feeling useless.

Get to Sosa. Find Maple and Starlight. Get his sword, if possible. Warn someone important of the bombs they had discovered attached to the dam... and let them decide what to do about it. And then, find Gunga the ferry operator and get a ride back to Riverfall. Hopefully Amber had found a way to repair his boat... and from there, he would see where life took him. Gerardo rolled his plans around in his mind as he drifted, solidifying it with each turn. There was enough flexibility and enough goals he could drop that it should have been foolproof... though he was too smart to really believe in such a thing.

Suddenly, he squinted and slowed to a halt, a towering wall of wood and occasional bits of metal looming out of the forest, a jagged, blocky and dimly-lit canyon cutting through it where the road continued. "What have we here? A settlement, of some sort?"

"Blueleaf," Sharpie narrated at his side. "It's the place where most of the economic dropouts from the eastern part of the Stone District end up. I used to keep a loose eye on it because it seems like a good place to do off-the-record business, but haven't checked for a long time. If your friends were smart, they wouldn't have wasted any time here. It isn't a very safe city."

Gerardo nodded. "Well, I have full faith in their intelligence. Shall we fly over? We can't have caught up to them at this rate, assuming they are on hoof and didn't dally."

Sharpie shrugged, squinting into the city street herself. "It looks far too dark in there. Sure."

Once again regretting that he wasn't armed, Gerardo took wing and soared up and over the ramshackle wall of building edges, gaining height swiftly. He leveled off at the top... for a given value of top, that was. The city roof was uneven, in some places spiked with random spires, in others depressed in valleys for plazas, and largely supporting a maze-like, walled in structure of brighter colors and neater roofs that might have been a gated community.

"I can't fathom how all this doesn't come tumbling down," he muttered, winging forward across the chaotic architecture.

"Probably magic," Sharpie grumbled back. "Huh. Look, they're turning the lights on."

Gerardo looked, and just as she had said, the city was rapidly coming aglow with flickering, orange energy. He shrugged. "Perhaps it grew late enough at night?"

Sharpie shrugged back. "I heard something about them having power shortages recently, but don't know the details. But..." Something compelled her to turn around, and her coat completely bristled. "Maybe we shouldn't sit around talking?"

"Hmm?" Gerardo turned as well... and likewise recoiled. A hefty wall of clouds was pouring down from the mountains, its haze of rain already visible, threatening to overrun them in minutes. "...Ah. Yes, that could be something we don't wish to get caught out in..."

"I don't want to look for shelter here..." Sharpie hesitantly grumbled, an unspoken but on her lips.

Gerardo nodded. "And my friends would not have doubled back to find it. If we stop, they will undoubtedly get further ahead. I nominate that we proceed with haste, and try merely to outrun the storm."

A smile and a grimace fought for dominance on Sharpie's face. "You aren't very familiar with Ironridge weather, are you?"