Chapter Fifteen
To catch the hunter, one could think like the hunter... or lure them by becoming bait.
Baltimare had a mayor. A pony which the city depended on, a pony who its denizens looked up to. A pony who could not be spoken with because they were locked up in their office, unable to handle the pressure bearing down on them because of the Shadow Sweep sensation.
Falcon Wing looked around the main floor at the crowds of ponies clamoring for answers and the grossly outnumbered ponies in golden barding defined by light blue accents. The Baltimare Guard he assumed. Their uniforms gave them an authoritative air to their presence but there were so few of them here it seemed the citizens had more sway in power here.
"So this is what the start of a mob looks like," Alana whispered into his ear. He agreed, but did not want to think about that.
"Looks like we came at a bad time... but we've already delayed long enough," said the wingless pegasus, who then mustered as much courage as he could and started forcing his way through the barricade of ponies...
... which resulted in getting bucked so hard he went tumbling back out of the thicket of multicolored hides, sliding across the black tiled floor in a wild spin and only stopping when he bumped into Alana.
"Thank you... for not moving..." he said dizzily.
"Don't mention it!"
She helped him back onto his hooves and he shook to clear his head of stars. "Any ideas on how to get a bunch of unruly... buck-happy ponies to stop acting like such?" he asked.
"Shoot something. Or someone. But then you wind up with an entirely different set of problems," Alana answered.
Falcon Wing drooped slightly. "Really? Is that the best you can come up with?"
"Well, I know unicorns can use their magic to make their voices louder but since we are both without horns, I don't think we have much luck there..." Alana replied.
At that moment, Falcon Wing had a stroke of genius. "Horns don't make the unicorn and no one else in the former-Wasteland has a Pipeye!" he exclaimed, pulling the goggles down and cycling through the available broadcast frequencies.
Baltimare had a lot of isolated stations that were not nearly as far reaching as DJ Pon3. They were mostly for communication purposes; he assumed the Baltimare Guard used them to coordinate their efforts around the city. But if he could listen in on these frequencies, didn't that mean the Shadow Sweep could do so also if they had a radio on them as well?
It was something to keep note of, he decided as he unleashed the voice of the DJ upon the restless crowd, Pipeye volume at max.
It wasn't exactly his voice -- Falcon Wing had tuned in mid-song -- but the music might as well have been the voice of god, the natural echo of the building only amplifying the already loud broadcast.
"-- I'll dance with Luna on the moon, look at the sun and go blind, but I'll die happy knowing I'm not you!" were the words sung by a somber sounding stallion to unusually uplifting music. Perhaps it made sense in context?
Falcon Wing shut off the radio when he saw that the crowd had stopped bombarding the guards with their concerns and had turned their gaze to him, their expressions ranging from confusion to anger.
Alana leaned over to him and muttered, "Well at least you didn't start a panic..."
It was right about then that the guards took advantage of the situation, pulling out their batons and herding the angry citizens out from the building's lobby and down the stairs beyond its large wooden doors, much better at handling their many protests now.
"Heh, thanks for that, kid," one of the guards said, an aged stallion that was a chocolate brown in color, his mane and tail only a slightly darker shade of it. "My colleagues and I were worried that gathering would have turned into a riot had we done that sooner."
"Falcon Wing is pretty good at making distractions, aren't you Falcon?" Alana chimed. Falcon rubbed the back of his head with a hoof, smiling sheepishly.
"It was nothing really, anyone with a Pipbuck -- or Pipeye -- could have done it!" he responded.
"That so?" replied the chocolate colored guard. "Because I don't see any other ponies in this building with Stable-Tec equipment! The name's Cocoa, little Falcon Wing, and you are...?" he asked after looking to the pony beside the colt.
"Alana," the caramel mare answered before Falcon could ask his one word question.
"Nice to meet you both, good to have some outsiders who aren't a bunch of trouble makers!" Cocoa said after hearty chuckle then abruptly, he added with a deep, gravelly voice: "You aren't a couple of Wasteland trouble makers are you?"
"No sir, trouble just follows us around, but we try not to cause any," Falcon Wing thought.
"You don't have to worry about us, officer Cocoa! We're just here to help out... with your... Sweepy problem," Alana answered for the two of them. She leaned in to whisper the last part in the officer's ear.
The officer's yellow eyes widened then he nodded with understanding.
"Should've expected as much, nowadays the Shadow Sweep seems to be all ponies have on their minds. I can't say I blame them though, this used to be such a nice town, all things considering," he said, "the city was climbing out of the ditch Equestria had fallen into around the time that crazy stable mare cleared the skies... when the new wielders of the Elements of Harmony cleansed the land of radiation and taint things seemed to be getting back to... normal. A new normal you know, not the constant struggle to survive kind of normal. The normal that they say existed 200 years ago!"
"When did the Shadow Sweep appear? How many ponies have they killed?" Falcon Wing inquired.
"A bit over a week ago -- wait, Falcon you're just a kid, what are you doing trying to take on something like the Shadow Sweep!?" Cocoa asked.
"I've been through a lot in a short time, mister Cocoa. I'm no foal... and I'm not much of a stallion yet, but I am certainly not a kid," said the red colt. "And I'm definitely not little!" he added hotly.
While he spoke, his mind was racing to put things together. A week ago? Wasn't that around the same time Erasure was getting the animal wranglers in Dodge? Surely there couldn't be a connection between a mad unicorn experimentalist and a serial killer. They were halfway across the entire Equestrian former-Wasteland from each other for Celestia's sake!
"We're just trying to do some good for a world defined by evil and savagery, officer; we can help restore peace in Baltimare! We're already quite aware of the danger but that isn't going to stop us!" Alana said, standing valiantly at the flightless pegasus' side.
"And I already have a plan that could bring the Sweeper out of the shadows in just a few days, maybe even less if my hunch is correct!" the red colt proclaimed, which took Alana by surprise.
"You do!?" Cocoa and Alana said at once. They exchanged glances then turned their attention back on Falcon Wing.
"There have been... other events... that took place a week ago as well. I'm afraid I'm not too comfortable expanding on the subject but I'm not too convinced they are only coincidences. The distance between them is great but the time frame... it just can't be random chance!" Falcon Wing explained.
Cocoa narrowed his eyes.
"I think you should talk to chief Whiplash," he said, gesturing for the two ponies to follow him.
They complied, following Cocoa into the recesses of City Hall. At the end of a long white walled hallway, the chocolate colored stallion opened the door.
An earth pony sat behind a large black desk that had papers stacked up on it, pens and pencils in cups, a small toy train locomotive on the far side of the desk to them and a map of the city. A swiveling desk lamp shone intensely on the map the white police mare marked up with the pencil she held in her mouth.
She put down the writing utensil and asked in an even voice "Is something the matter, officer Cocoa?"
"These two ponies have a proposition for you... concerning the Shadow Sweep..." he replied.