The pounding bass could be heard even at the distance Twilight Sparkle, Alucard, and Mikasa stood at.

"That's it, all right," confirmed Twilight. "The Second Street Ballrooms. It's got a glass façade, Alucard. Can you make out anything in there?"

Alucard stared down the distant building, putting his vampiric enhanced senses to use.

"Miss Sparkle, there are some people inside."

"What are they doing?" asked Mikasa. "Fighting?"

"No," sighed the vampire. "Dancing."

Twilight furrowed her brow. "There are a few possibilities here. Either the people dancing are just a form of ambience for the location, or they're actually part of the VIW's forces."

"Either way, how would we go about getting inside? We can't just walk in the front door. We'll stick out like sore thumbs," Mikasa pointed out.

"We are going to need some subterfuge no matter how we come at this," said Twilight. "I suggest first and foremost that we adopt disguises."

The unicorn began to cast a spell, focusing brilliant lavender energy into her horn. It glowed brighter and brighter until it exploded in a flash of light, with a rather unique result. Mikasa and Alucard stared in disbelief.

"You're… human," whispered the scout.

"A slightly purple human," Alucard corrected.

"That I am," smiled Twilight. She had transformed into a slender teenaged girl, her hair replicating the patterns on her mane, and her neatly-kept school uniform bearing her Cutie Mark's insignia.

"I suppose I'm next," moaned Alucard. He dissolved into his fine black mist and reconstituted as a young girl in a crisp white suit.

"I-I did not see that coming," stammered Mikasa.

"Mikasa, in order to be able to infiltrate that ballroom, you're going to need to lose your 3D Maneuver Gear. It'll be too obvious that you're armed. If you can stow it outside, I should be able to teleport it back to you when you need it."

"I feel naked without it, though…"

Twilight's human eyes narrowed. "You'll feel dead with it if you walk in there."

"Fine." Mikasa then spent five minutes undoing latches and straps to unhook the unwieldy-looking boxes and cables. Twilight gave her an awkward glance.

"Um… maybe teleporting that in won't be so convenient."

Mikasa knelt down and untied Date's sword from the 3DMG, holding it up.

"How about this?"

"That should be a little easier for you to use."

The scout took off her jacket and undid a button or two of her shirt, picking up the 3DMG and tossing it over her shoulder as the group began to close in on the ballrooms. They swung around back, and after confirming that the back door was unguarded, proceeded to break in. They quietly stepped inside to dim fluorescent lighting, scratched tile floors, and dull, thumping trance music. Mikasa swung her 3DMG behind a trash can and propped her sword up against a wall.

"ARE WE READY?" shouted Twilight over the music. "IT'S JUST BEHIND THOSE DOORS OVER THERE!"

"DID I EVER TELL YOU I HATE TRANCE?" asked Alucard.

Mikasa was confused. "WAIT, THEY CALL THIS TRANCE? HOW COULD ANYONE FALL INTO A TRANCE TO THIS?"

"PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS," replied Twilight. "LET'S GO!"

She motioned for the other two to follow her, and they slunk down the maintenance hallway until they reached the loudest double doors they could find. In one carefully-calculated motion, Twilight turned the knob and slipped through, with Mikasa and Alucard following. They found themselves in a particularly dark corner of the room, which was regularly illuminated by pulses of brightly-colored light. For the moment, it seemed as though no one had seen them, though the situation had become increasingly suspect.

"They're… all girls," said Mikasa, barely audible over the music. Her observation was correct, all of the people dancing in the room did appear to be teenaged girls.

"WELL, WE'LL FIT IN JUST FINE," shouted Alucard.

"WE SHOULD TRY TO IDENTIFY THE VIW!" Twilight instructed. "IF WE CAN TAKE THEM OUT, WE DON'T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THEIR FORCES!"

"WHAT'S THAT?" asked a girl approaching from the crowd. Alucard began to reach into her jacket to draw a weapon, but Twilight extended a hand, ordering her to stop. The vampire reluctantly did, pretending instead to fiddle with her buttons. The girl donned a semi-formal dress and wore a lace choker with a heart-shaped charm.

"WE WERE JUST SAYING THAT THIS MUSIC IS GREAT!" replied Twilight.

"YEAH," said the girl. "THIS DJ'S MY FAVORITE. GET A LOAD OF THAT SYNTH!"

After a few seconds of buzzsaw leads, the music quieted down as the DJ began to transition into the next song.

"Very nice, very nice," giggled Twilight awkwardly. "But I think we'd like to make a request."

The girl beamed. "Well, go on up! Just don't ask for any grime, I've had enough of that for one day, okay?"

"Got it," said Alucard, giving a double thumbs-up. The trio made a beeline for the crowd of dancing girls and began to slowly work their way through it.

"That was weird," whispered Mikasa.

Alucard nodded. "Something is off about all of these girls. But I can't put my finger on it."

Twilight remained on-task. "Our best bet is the DJ. We'll take them out first. If they're not the VIW, I don't know who is."

The group pushed their way through the front of the crowd and into an open space in front of the stage where the DJ was set up. The speakers blasted bass loud enough to unfurl Mikasa's scarf, which she continually had to adjust. Twilight waved toward the short steps to the left of the stage.

"Come on. Let's finish this."

They stole up the steps and came to an uneasy stop behind the DJ's sound booth. It was another girl, with a head of crazy bleached-blond hair, designer headphones, and an off-the-shoulder top. She turned away from her sound board, slipping the headphones off of one ear.

"You guys making a request?"

"Yes," said Twilight. "We'd like you to die."

Mikasa's recently-inherited katana teleported into the room with a flash of purple light- not too different from the pulsing strobes- and the girl fluidly snatched the sheath, drew the blade, and drove it through the DJ's stomach. Quickly, they slipped her body to the floor to avoid suspicion.

"Now what?" asked Mikasa, removing her sword from the corpse.

"I don't know," said Twilight, uncertain. "I thought the DJ would be them, for sure."

"Maybe it was them," suggested Alucard. "And nothing's happened yet."

"WHAT'S THE HOLDUP?" asked a voice from the crowd. It was the girl from before, working her way toward the sound booth. "WE'VE BEEN ON THIS TRACK FOR, LIKE, THREE MINUTES!"

"Hide the body," whispered Mikasa.

"I'm trying!" grunted Twilight, attempting to slide the DJ's corpse under the stool she had been sitting on.

The girl from the crowd was on the steps now, a second away from seeing them. Twilight stopped bothering with the body and breathed deeply, enveloping all three of them in a teleport spell that sent them back across the room to the door they had entered from.

"That was close," she gasped.

"Tell me about it," said the girl, leaning against the wall. Mikasa drew her sword, and Alucard removed the pistols from her jacket. Twilight surrounded herself in brightly-glowing magic before returning to her unicorn form.

"So it was you all along!" roared Mikasa, pointing the tip of the katana toward the girl.

"Not exactly," she replied. "You stuck out like sore thumbs when you walked in. So I was the one that greeted you, but after that I stayed right here, knowing that you'd come back trying to make an escape."

"Then who was the girl who started heading toward us?" asked Twilight. "She looked and sounded just like you."

"Her? She's nobody special. I just copied her form."

The unicorn tilted her head. "Copied… her form?"

"That's right," she smirked. She reached up and touched the charm on her choker. Her dress dissolved dramatically before another one formed over her body out of thin air, her hair lengthened and shifted from brown to blond, while her skin tone, facial structure, and eye color changed slightly.

"The name's Honey Kisaragi. I'm the VIW."

"Want to explain to us why you went all naked and change-y there for a second?" Alucard snapped from behind her pistols.

"Sure thing. It's not like you guys are going to live long enough to tell the tale," said Honey nonchalantly. "Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic- Arthur C. Clarke."

"So it wasn't magic," mused Twilight.

"Nope. I'm an android equipped with a nanomachine drive that allows me to alter the atomic structure of the air around me."

"On the atomic level…" whispered the unicorn. "You'd be able to create any compound you wanted."

"You're smart for a stuffed animal."

Twilight gritted her teeth. "I'm not a stuffed animal."

"Is that so? I couldn't tell," Honey spat. "Girls, get 'em!"

At once the revelers stopped their dance and began to swarm towards the three fighters. Honey leapt into the air, somersaulting over the horde of girls and landing back on the stage. Twilight, Alucard and Mikasa turned to face the more pressing threat.

"Alucard! Level five release!" commanded Twilight.

"Control art restriction level five released," Alucard announced hungrily. "Maintaining release until all targets are silenced." She lifted her pistols and began to fire into the crowd, each silver slug finding a firm mark in the center of their target's head. Bodies hit the floor, adding thumps to the bass loop that was still running.

Mikasa stood at the ready, waiting patiently as three of the girls surrounded her. As one began to lean forward into an attack, a single crisp snik rang out as the sword cleaved all three's stomachs open. As a pleasant surprise, Mikasa was not suddenly covered in entrails. Unfortunately, as Mikasa noted, this was because the girls' innards seemed to be of a more robotic nature.

"They're not human!" called the scout to her allies.

"You're right!" cried Twilight, blasting the skin off of one with a magical bolt. A smoldering sliver of metal peeked through the burn. "Don't let them hit you! They'll be very-" the unicorn took a heavy boot from the side, smashing into a wall. "-strong," she coughed.

Alucard ducked and juked left, firing at two more of the androids advancing on the fallen Twilight. A punch from behind blasted through her stomach, but did not concern her much. "I'm not too concerned about myself," cackled the vampire, ripping the arm out through her own abdomen, and knocking the assailant aside with its own severed limb. She slipped through the floor and rose back up next to her charge. "But are you all right, Miss Sparkle?"

The unicorn rose to her hooves, shaking her mane out. "They just knocked the wind out of me. I'll be fine," she explained.

"Just be careful. You will need your strength later. Let me handle this."

"All right, Alucard. Level four release."

"Wonderful!" she shouted. "Control art restriction level four released! I'll kill them all!"

Alucard put away her pistols and transmogrified her arms into hellhounds, each one chomping up several girls and sucking them into the black abyss of their maws. Mikasa took advantage of the opening this created and rushed through the crowd, leaping up toward the stage.

If I can take out Honey, her minions are sure to follow. Once we take care of this mess, we can link back up with the rest of the team. I'm done roughing it.

"I didn't expect you to be the one to make it this far," mused Honey, cracking her knuckles and turning to face Mikasa. "After all, you're just a human. Not like those two."

"I may just be a human, but humans can be capable of great things. That's why I'm fighting. Not to survive! I'm fighting so that humans can live free!"

"That's a very noble sentiment," agreed Honey. "I have to concur. But I also can't let you win just because we agree. So your little fight for humanity's freedom ends here! HONEY FLASH!"

She touched her charm again, this time causing even more dramatic changes. Her eyes glowed red, and her hair shortened and turned a similar shade of crimson, gaining enough wave to appear that it was a fire that had settled on her head. Her semi-formal dress was replaced by a much more revealing sleeveless unitard with the center cut out. A thin straight sword materialized out of the air, and the android snatched it with a flourish.

"Sometimes, I'm a dancer, or a musician, or a reporter, or a movie star! But my true identity is Cutey Honey! The Crimson Warrior of Love!" she announced, twirling the tip of her sword. "Now, taste the blade of my Silver Fleurette! En garde!"

Mikasa gripped her sword tighter. She had not yet attempted to best another swordsman with her new weapon, and she did not recognize the technique that the android was using. The straight sword was held mostly parallel with the ground, tilted up slightly. Honey's arm was folded, not extended, so at any moment she could effortlessly jab forward into Mikasa's gut.

"What's the matter?" asked the android. "Never seen a fencer before?"

Mikasa did not answer, instead dropping to a crouch and performing an upward slash. Honey straightened her arm and blocked Mikasa's slash with ease, sliding her sword along the katana until its tip nicked the scout's shoulder. Honey called out "Riposte!" and took a step back, returning to her previous stance.

Mikasa rolled backward, wincing from the incision. It was not a deep cut, but it hurt.

I thought that a thin sword like that wouldn't be able to stop this one at full speed. But if that doesn't work, how am I supposed to get through? If I make a move, she'll thrust and run me through. If she was fighting more like me- wait, that's it!

With sword at the ready, Mikasa took another step back, and performed a deliberately slow horizontal slash. Honey had to push her sword forward in order to stop the katana from slicing her hand- and as soon as she did, Mikasa released the full power of her strike, catching the straight sword just above the grip. The red-headed android's once-confident expression faded.

"You're q-quite strong for a human, aren't you?" she stuttered.

Mikasa smiled. "I am. And now I know how to lure you out."

"If you make this a battle of attrition, you'll never win. I'll bleed you dry!"

"We'll see about that," grunted Mikasa, pushing forward enough to draw her blade's tip across Honey's neck. The android flung her free hand forward, pushing Mikasa away, and the two returned to their stances, watching, waiting. One errant twitch, or an out of place breath, and they sprung at each other once again, a hurricane of deflected thrusts and parried slashes. Every once in a while, Honey would take a quick glance at her ever-decreasing number of troops.

"What kind of monsters are you, that you just work through this kind of defense with no problem?" asked Honey, bewildered.

"The kind of monsters that are going to win," retorted Mikasa, springing to her left and pushing her sword forward with a direct thrusting motion.

"You're OPEN!" shouted Honey, countering with a thrust of her own, aiming squarely for the center of Mikasa's stomach. The tip of her Silver Fleurette was about to find its mark when Mikasa scooted even further to the left, Honey's sword tasting nothing but air.

"WHAT?" gasped the android as the katana tore into her chest, sinking in up to the hilt. Something in the sword's path crunched and began to whine.

"You're good at sword fighting," Mikasa explained. "And your style is ideal for a one-on-one battle. But you fought too offensively, focusing on your target more than your target's movements." She pointed a finger at her left boot. "I pushed off with this foot, but my other one was still on the ground. That's how I was able to dodge and complete my attack."

"That's- zzt- an utter- zzt- load," crackled Honey, falling limp. Mikasa lowered the android to the ground, prying her sword out through the circuitry. At once, the few remaining androids dropped to the floor, deactivated. Alucard reluctantly set the few her arms were chewing down and returned her limbs to normal, before changing form entirely into the red-coated man they had been used to.

"You did it, Mikasa," said Twilight proudly.

The girl nodded. "Guess I did." With that, she promptly tumbled off the stage in a bleeding heap. The vampire and the unicorn rushed to their friend's side, checking her injuries.

"All of these little pinpricks," said the unicorn. "I've got a spell that will seal the wounds, but it'll take her some time to get back to fighting strength."

"She probably won't need to fight much more, Miss Sparkle. They're close, I'm certain."

Twilight zapped Mikasa with a bolt of magic, and the vampire gently hefted her onto his shoulders.

"The Second Street Ballrooms VIW has been defeated," declared Deep Thought. "Two remain."

"Let's get out of here," whispered Twilight, motioning with a hoof toward the main entrance. Alucard nodded, and the three were once again on the move.