The streets were silent enough that the sound of their footsteps echoed quietly back and forth between the shops, creating a pair of phantom pursuers. Twilight Sparkle brought herself to a stop slowly, looking around with a mournful severity.

"What's the matter, Miss Sparkle?" asked Alucard, stuffing his hands into his coat's pockets.

"It's dreary, being alone," the unicorn whispered.

"They'll come around soon enough," assured her companion.

"I hope they will," she sighed.

"As do I. It would at least give me something to do."

"Well, you really needed something, you could start by getting rid of our travelling buddy," Twilight offered, nudging her head backwards.

"Oh, her?" chuckled the vampire, smiling. "I was saving her for later, when I get hungry."

Twilight shook her head. "I suggest you get hungry now, then."

Alucard heard the click-click-hum of a large energy weapon charging up behind his head, and smiled.

"Speak of the devil," he grinned. "I guess you can't stand people talking about you behind your back."

The power-armored woman placed a hand on her blaster- covered right arm to steady it.

"Technically, you were in front of me. And yes, I can't. I only allow people to talk behind my back if they say 'That Samus sure is a badass, I had better not mess with her!'. That way, I only give off the right impression."

"I let people say whatever they want about me," oozed Alucard. "But they only ever say one thing."

"And what's that?" growled Samus behind her energy cannon.

"It sounds a bit like choking," he replied, whipping a huge pistol behind him to deliver a round into Samus' Power Suit's chest. The bullet ricocheted away with a crack, and Samus released a burst from her arm cannon. Burnt pieces of Alucard fell onto the street in a manner particularly lacking in dignity.

"You know, it's funny," laughed Samus, kicking Alucard's body aside. "When I ran into you guys before, I didn't really think I'd run into you again. But with the amount of credits on your heads, I guess you could say our reunion was destiny."

Twilight Sparkle turned to face her opponent, frowning. "I'm of the belief that destiny isn't determined by the transfer of money."

Alucard's body began to piece itself back together in a storm of hellish black mist. His still-forming arms swung his pistols back towards Samus, the half of his face that had not returned twisted into a giddy smile.

"First you make the mistake of challenging us twice. Now you tell us you've done it for money when there's clearly none here. You're more of an idiot than I thought," he hissed.

"To be truthful, it's not- actually- credits," Samus blushed. "They promised me they could get me… a lot of a particular food item. That I have a particular weakness for."

"You're not helping my opinion of you," muttered Alucard.

"Do you think that I care?!" she screamed.

The vampire tilted his hat down. "You seemed concerned about it when we were talking about you in front of your back."

Samus lost it, firing desperately with her arm cannon. Alucard dodged the shot this time, making full use of his horrifying speed. He trained his pistols on separate targets on Samus' body, aiming one for her sleekly-armored abdomen and another for her cannon arm's elbow joint. Both of his shots were direct hits, but neither managed to scratch her armor.

Samus laughed aloud, blasting off the ground with her jet boots and wrapping her huge arms around the vampire's comparatively slim body. The tackle sent the two flying over Twilight's head and into the shoe store across the street.

"You're really going to try and use slugthowers? What do you think this is? The twenty-second century?!" Her enthusiasm was beginning to fog the inside of her visor.

"If you're going to complain about my weapons, I can always adopt a different strategy."

Alucard slipped his pistols back into his coat, placing a boot on Samus' midsection in order to push her away with a forceful kick. The vampire floated to his feet gracefully, roaring with laughter.

"Come on!" he guffawed. "Show me a halfway entertaining fight! I've been just dying for a challenge!"

Samus picked herself up, removing a designer stiletto that had become lodged in the gap between her shoulder armor and her arm. "Okay, if you really want to be dying," she spat as her suit collapsed around her, folding into a neat, bronze sphere.

"Oh, you're going to run away again," whined Alucard. "What a shame. I was hoping you'd stay."

Samus' Morph Ball did not run away. It spun forward, drew a lazy loop around the vampire's feet, and returned to where it was before, exploding back out into the bulky armor. Samus smirked behind her visor. Alucard noticed a soft beeping noise and looked down to see several metal orbs gently pulsing with red light.

Alucard tilted his hat down and sighed. "Ah. I see."

Twilight managed to raise a magical barrier just before the explosion's shockwave reached her, tearing the contents of the shoe store out of its building and across the street. She kept the pink dome of magic up until she was certain there were no more chunks of concrete or burnt track shoes left to fall on her head, then allowed it to dissipate, blinking the smoke out of her eyes as it crept into the now unoccupied space.

Samus Aran stepped through the mist, materializing in front of the unicorn with a charged arm cannon.

"You sure don't like making things easy, do you?" she grunted, using her other arm to remove her helmet, shaking her ponytail free. "Then again, nobody really does. If I had run into the elf or the girl with that curvy thing with the string-"

"It's called a bow," corrected Twilight.

"Sure, yeah, a bow. If I had run into them first this would have been a lot easier. But I found you two and I stick with targets of opportunity. I swear, if Megatron doesn't pay up…"

"Ha!" shouted Twilight, pointing a hoof at the bounty hunter. "You revealed your employer!"

"So?" Chuckled Samus. "You're dead anyway. And it's not like it matters. I don't care if you tear him to pieces later. As long as I get my payment for this job, I'm good."

"I wouldn't be too certain about either of those things," mused the unicorn with a smirk.

The color drained from the bounty hunter's face. "He regenerated again, didn't he?"

"Yep."

Samus only caught a glimpse of Alucard's formless black abyss of a body before it turned into a stream, passed through her, and regenerated on the other side. She collapsed to her knees, blood suddenly welling in her throat.

"Wh-what did you just do?" she gasped.

Alucard let his toothy grin stretch from one end of his face to the other. "I tore up a few organs. Your appendix and spleen, I think. You'll live- in pain." He drew the larger of his two pistols and placed it between Samus' eyes. Twilight Sparkle trotted in front of her, shaking her mane with condescendence.

"You can tell Megatron that he can blame his failures on himself. If he was half the mastermind he says he is, he wouldn't get defeated even by teams as powerful as ours. And I highly doubt he can provide you with… what exactly did he promise you?"

"Millet puffs," coughed Samus.

"Like what you feed to parakeets?" asked Alucard.

"No! These are candies. I'm not a parakeet!" she cried weakly.

"Did I say you were?"

"You sure thought it!" she screamed, flailing her cannon arm and knocking his pistol away. Samus made a labored jump back, once again aiming down her arm towards her quarries. "Now, shut up and DIE!"

This time, her Arm Cannon did not fire an energy blast, but instead unfolded into a compact missile launcher. One of the guided munitions spiraled out of the barrel, leaving a thin trail of smoke behind. Twilight conjured another defensive barrier around herself and her traveling companion, but upon the missile's impact and explosion, the lavender wall of energy disappeared.

"I can't keep it up," Twilight whimpered. "I just don't have the magical endurance to take many more hits like that."

"Too bad," crowed Samus, firing another missile. Twilight fought the urge to shut her eyes, knowing that if she focused, she might be able to survive. However, she found that would have been unnecessary, as a familiar figure picked a convenient time to land in front of her and slice the missile in half, allowing her to create a less-intense barrier to protect them and their savior from the blast.

A tattered red piece of cloth floated through the smoke, which parted to reveal Mikasa in all of her Recon Corps finery. The sword she extended in front of her was not one of her razor-like Paring Blades, but instead, a comparatively mundane katana.

Samus took a step back. "A-another one?" she sputtered. "I… I know… I can't-" She broke into a fit of coughing, lowered her weapon, transformed into her Morph Ball, and sped away. Alucard extended his hand, and his lost pistol floated back into it, sights centered on Mikasa.

"What a welcome," muttered the scout. "Is this how I'm repaid for saving you?"

Twilight raised a hoof toward Alucard. "Put the gun down. She's not with them, clearly."

Alucard made a soft grunt and lowered his weapon, tucking it back inside his coat.

"Sorry," apologized the unicorn. "Security measures, if you will. We're glad to see you, Mikasa."

"You could have fooled me," she growled in reply. "Where's the rest of the team?"

"Oh, they're, um… we're taking a two-pronged approach. Splitting up to maximize the search area."

"More like maximizing your chances of getting killed," she said while sliding the katana into a scabbard tied to her 3DMG's left box.

"There is a slight tactical disadvantage, yes," mumbled Twilight. "But with you around, it should be completely mitigated!"

Mikasa narrowed her eyes and removed a small item from her pocket, tossing it toward the unicorn, who caught it in mid-air with her magic.

"It's a lead to a VIW, no doubt," Mikasa stated as Twilight unfolded the paper and examined the emblem. She nodded in agreement.

"Then let's plot a course for these 'Second Street Ballrooms'. We've no time to waste."

The trio started off at a cautious walk, with Alucard once again taking his place at Twilight's side.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" he whispered.

"If we meet them there… it's better sooner than later," replied Twilight.

"What are you talking about?" pried Mikasa from behind.

"Oh, nothing much. Just when we'll meet the other half of the team," explained Twilight with a nervous giggle.

"All right. I was just checking. I don't like being left in the dark."

"Nobody does," whispered the unicorn.