Pidge works alone.

Not just because she too prideful to look for help, but because she works better with no one holding her back. Her head spins as someone walks into the room, and for once, she wishes she had a partner. Maybe then she could've taken down the pair; while she had been prepared for the two vampires that she'd tracked down, she hadn't expected a third. She'd still managed to kill two of them, but the third had captured her before she could retaliate.

She tries to turn, but the movement, combined with hanging upside down, has her feeling like she's gonna throw up. It's not helpful to her stomach that the basement smells like rot, but even through that, she can smell him. Vampire. The person stops in front of her, and all that she can see are his long legs.

He fiddles with the ropes that tie her up, and she falls to the ground, barely able to prevent herself from landing on her head. The stranger squats down to untie her hands, leaving him open to an attack. She rolls onto her knees and barrels into him, knocking him into the ground. She pulls a stake from her sleeve and holds it between her binded palms; it's too thin and weak to do much real damage, but the stranger doesn't see to notice. He freezes, blue eyes wide in surprise.

Wait, blue eyes?

"Who are you?" Pidge growls. While vampires only have red eyes, he still smells like one of them, and she knows better than to trust her sight over her sense of smell.

"The name's Lance. I'm a bona fide bloodsucker hunter, just like you." Pidge doesn't remove the stake from over his heart. He sighs. "I can prove it."The boy- she says boy because it's obvious that he's young, not much older than her- slowly brings his hand to his neck, pulling a chain out from beneath his shirt. He dangles the charm in front of her for a moment before dropping it back into his shirt. She knows the symbol well enough; it's the sign of a Garrison hunter. Her father and brother wore the same symbol, and now she does too.

She slides off of his chest, and drops the stake. "Sorry."

The boy sits up and brushes off his shirt. She can see it clearly now that he's human. His brown skin is too lively for a member of the undead, and his stench clearly comes from the black blood spotting his blue t-shirt. "Don't worry about it. I'd be all defensive too, if I got myself captured by a coven like that." He kneels beside her again and cuts through the rope binding her wrists.

Something crashes upstairs, and they both look back to the stairway. The door is still closed.

Pidge rubs her rope-burned wrists and stands, quickly surveying the room for her bag. The vamp that had knocked her out had taken all of the stakes she carried off of her, as well as her Garrison signia. She wouldn't have minded leaving all of that behind, if she hadn't also been carrying that picture.

Lance offers her a stake. "We should probably take care of the last two upstairs."

Pidge takes it from him, and slides it onto her belt. "We can go in a sec. I need to find my bag first."

Lance opens his mouth to reply, just as the door slams open. Two pale figures dash down the stairs, headed directly for them. Pidge pulls the stake from her belt again, the rough feel of the hawthorn as familiar to her as her own skin. The two bloodsuckers veer slightly past Lance, and she realizes that they mean to take out the least threatening adversary first. She grins; they're in for a huge disappointment.

She kicks the first one away, as the second tries to grab her hair. She ducks, and delivers a hard uppercut before jabbing the stake into it. She misses slightly; it lands in his shoulder, not his heart. The vampire screams as she pulls it out, and jabs it in again, this time hitting her target. The vampire freezes as time catches up with it, it's body petrifying before dissolving into dust.

Pidge stands up, and brushes herself off.

Beside her, Lance is finishing off his own opponent. His vamp is bigger than hers was, at least six feet tall. He has at least fifty pounds on Lance, but he manages to keep the upper hand anyway. He stabs downward, his stake cracking as it enters the bloodsuckers heart. The vamp dies, and the broken stake falls into a pile of ash.

Pidge leaves him to his own devices, as she collects a sample of the ashes. She stows the small vial in her pocket, and then stands up, ready to leave.

Lance watches her curiously as she searched the room for her bag. "Is there a reason why you're keeping a sample?"

Pidge shakes her head. She opens a cabinet by the far wall and steps back as the smell of rotting meat hits her. "I just like keeping samples. Some people collect stakes; I collect dust."

She almost closes it, when she realises that her bag is sitting on top of the carcass, deep in the corner.

"Well, I've still got two more covens to hit, if you wanna come with."

Pidge grabs her bag and slings it over her shoulder. The bottom is slightly damp with blood and she tries not to wrinkle her nose at the thought. "I'm good on my own." She replies, trying to keep her tone cordial. Technically, she's not supposed to be out there on her own, not at her level and definitely not without the approval of a Garrison official. She doubts that Lance is supposed to be out here either, so she doesn't fear refusing him.

Lance shakes his head. "You just got taken down by a surprise bloodsucker. I can get it if you like working alone, like Keith," He mutters the name in a tone of pure disgust. Pidge finds the name familiar. Wasn't he that hunter who got expelled earlier that year? "But I'd feel bad if I let you go and you ended up being hunted one day because of me."

Pidge attempts to walk past him, but his long legs give him an advantage: speed. He blocks every attempt to walk past him, until she's so frustrated, she gives in. "Fine. But I've got my own list to hit, and you'd better keep up."

He smiles. "No problem, uh…" he pauses and frowns. "Actually, you never told me you name."

"Pidge," She replies, with a small smile of her own. "My name's Pidge."

OoOoOoOoO

They finish up the next two houses without any problems. There's never any more than three vamps, and with their combined power, they pose no threat at all. Pidge has to admit, Lance's easy banter and upbeat personality makes the night go by much faster. Pidge has even started joking along with him.

"..and that's why me and Hunk aren't allowed there anymore."

Pidge can barely breathe through her laughter. "What the hell made you think it was okay to use a stake as a fork?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time!" Lance protests as they stop in front of an upbeat storefront.

The pink decor and pastel florescent lights are a stark difference to their last two locations. She doubts that even a roach could be found inside. Lance walks up and peers inside.

"You sure a vamp would crash at a place like this?" He asks, doubt audible in his tone.

Pidge glance down at her tracker. "All of the signs have led to here, and my tracker's never been wrong."

Lance shrugs. "Okay then. We should probably check the back of the building though. I doubt the bloodsucker is chillin' in the front of the store."

Pidge follows Lance to the back of the store. There's only one door, a giant rolling one meant for truck deliveries. The ledge is way too high for her to reach, she realizes as Lance jumps to grab the ledge. He leans back over, offering a hand. "Now you can finally see my true use: helper for the vertically challenged."

Pidge pouts. "I'm not that much shorter than you."

Lance snorts as he pulls her up. "Right. And I'm not cuban." He overestimates her weight, and pulls her too hard, causing her to land in his lap. She quickly scurries off, as if he was not a fellow hunter, but a hand grenade, ready to explode at any time.

"Sorry." She mutters.

"No biggie." He replies, turning away to open the door. Was it just the lighting, or did his brown skin seem a little flushed? She doesn't have time to question it, as he pulls the door up and steps inside.

She follows after him, letting him lead the way through the dark as she rummages through her bag for a flashlight. She doesn't even see him when he stops, not until she runs into him. She stumbles back. "Why'd you stop?"

"Quiet." He hisses, turning back to her with a look of fear in his eyes.

She finally gets her flashlight out and turns it on.

In front of them is not the two bloodsuckers that she had accounted for, but seven. Each one is half asleep, in that strange semi-conscious trance that bloodsuckers attain during the day. Their pale skin looks almost translucent with the light shining on them. One of them flutters their eyes.

Lance grabs her flashlight and shuts it off. He turns around slowly and wraps his arms around her. Her face is smashed into his chest, and out of instinct, she starts to struggle.

"Shh." He hushes. "They can't smell me, but they will notice you if you don't keep still."

Pidge forces herself to stay still as something thuds behind him. She can barely hear the footsteps, they're so quiet, but the fact that she hears them at all proves that it has noticed them yet. It takes a few more steps to the open door, and then she hears the tell-tale flutter of it's cloaks as it disappears into the twilight. If they're lucky, it was the only early riser of the group, and they won't have to wait much longer.

Lance holds her still for a few more agonising moments before releasing her, and then they both hurry back out of the room. They don't dare speak until they're far from the place.

"There was only supposed to be three." Pidge says. How the hell was she this wrong?

Lance shakes his head. "Did you account for their victims? If they were really active, it's not unlikely that they converted the other four before you got to 'em."

Pidge feels stupid. "Such a damn oversight. If I had've come here alone, I'd be dead."

Lance leans on her head, his hands padding the point of his chin from directly touching her scalp. "Yeah, but I did."

Pidge smiles, even though he can't see it. "Thanks, Lance."

"No problem." He says, moving to walk beside her. Their hands brush and Pidge can feel her face growing hot. "You should probably get used to me hanging around you though, not cause of your personality or anything though." Lance teased. "I never track so many leads in a single day; I'll just have to stick around you so I can get in on the action."

Normally someone barging in on her plans was annoying, and resulted in a prompt telling off of the intruder in question. Even though Lance had been an unwanted addition at first, she had found herself slowly enjoying his company. "Only if you can keep up." She replied, dashing past him to the next stop sign.

"No problem, Pidge." He replies, quickly overtaking her.

It's not so bad to work with a partner, Pidge thinks.