Author Note: Here we go again! First of all I must say I'm impressed that Smash X Evolution got over 5,000 hits! It's a great accomplishment for me, now that's the highest hit I got on a story so far =D. So I'll try to keep it better and this time this volume is for real, nothing is perfect so it will definitely have some mistakes, but I won't delete it for that reason. For the ones who read the previous beta, you'll notice something's remain and some others are different, mostly is the narration what changes along with story's plot for this arc. Also I told you I'd bring this sooner, sorry I lied, there have been a lot of things going on, but anyway here we are!

Ok! Maquiel, let's do this!

Maquiel: Remember, ishida_sasuke owns only his OC, not the story or the characters. Some day I'll have my own copyrights! Hell yeah!

Flash Forward

"So, are we ready?"

"The groom is already making his entrance, so let's only wait for mom."

It was a nice day; everyday was. It's ironic; it was supposed to be some kind of Apocalypses, but it wasn't anything like that, we were even celebrating a wedding!

It's been four years since Matthew left the party and nothing really happened. I trained hard as hell every day and I was becoming every time stronger and smarter at fighting. Pit used all those four years to teach me the basics concepts of combat, reading ahead the enemy movements and everything, but it was never put into practice. After all these years, I've not seen Matthew, nor Gabriel, or even one guy who ever helped Wolf. It was like they were gone for good.

Government restored itself; after the chaos caused by Wolf massacre on the Government Building they had to take dramatic strategies in order to calm the population and restore international support. As if it wasn't enough, afterwards Wolf's coup d'etat, Chile suffered a strong earthquake. Yeah, government was living a hell, but it eventually restored itself with the new elections. As for us, we were always ready for battle, training every day, shaping our senses in order to detect them, but there was no single track of them, not even Melanie, nor could Sophie see them at all. So, eventually we had to move on with our lives. And now, a teenage Melanie- who was larger, and attractive- along with a young adult me- with longer, straight hair, larger height and thinner face-, were acting as made of honor for Sophie's wedding. She was skeptical about this at first, but eventually she grew to accept it.

Link and Ash were keeping the door so the guests could find their way in and also could feel protected by them. No stranger would ever recognize them with their tuxedos; even Link's ears were hiding by a coup hat.

Salaric walked forward, he was about to reach the shrine where he would get married in no time. He looked backward and felt sad; there were no guests on either side, only us to stare. I wondered what could have happened to Sophie's family, after all, I never heard anything about her relatives, I only knew Melanie and Matthew and in four years I never got to hear of anyone else beside Matthew's father Vincent.

The flows of thoughts were stopped when Sophie entered on the room. She was dressed in the classic white dress that covered everything from her chest to under and continued in a small tail dress. It wasn't astonishing, but it was pretty. I felt nostalgic about it; I would like to be walking like her, towards to my beloved Matthew. She was doing that now, and she was received kindly by Salaric.

"You've made me so happy Sophie," he said before we started "since the moment you took care of me…"

"Shhh," she said "you can say all that later, now let's do this."

"Yes ma'am."

It was touching for me, seeing the whole ceremony in such time as our. It was sunny outside, spring, and the world seemed to me right in just this very second. A tear came from my face and I cleaned it right away.

After the whole speech from the priest, they exchanged rings and were officially husband and wife.

The smashers clapped widely to show they're excitement, but they were all hidden, so nobody saw them while clapping, the only suspicious thing was a yell from Pikachu that made everyone look upwards to the ceiling from where the yell came from. I wasn't sure if he was cheering for the wedding or if he was being under attack.

"Do you sense anything, Melanie?"

"No, nothing." She answered me "I haven't in four years."

I had to admit that a part of me wanted it to be an alarm, something that guides us to fight Matthew. I wanted to find him and bring him back to his senses. But there was no need to, he never showed up.

"There's something missing here." Melanie said faintly.

"Matthew."

We both looked downwards with sadness in our eyes.

"Maybe it's time to move on, Maquiel."

"What do you mean?"

"Wolf hasn't been seen in years, not one of the smashers. We've been training so hard, and for what reason? All what he wanted was to have Matthew and now he does… he never tried to conquer the world or anything like that."

"And is it ok to leave Matthew at his mercy?"

"He agreed on his own, nobody forced him."

I was getting a little bit pissed by what Melanie was telling me, but I contained my anger.

"Don't you think he want us to be happy?"

"I'm sure about that, but it doesn't make sense Melanie," I replied "I mean, if it was just Wolf then maybe, but what about Gabriel? Snake, Falco, everyone else, did they just fight so Wolf could get Matthew? What did they win? There's something wrong about it. If they haven't been seen in four years is because they are planning something big, and we must be careful, we are less than them."

"Yeah you are right," she replied smiling "I would like to see him too."

I could not guess how Melanie felt, but I was torn apart while thinking of not seeing Matthew again. Then, looking at the empty seat where he should have been I realized that there was someone else missing. Robert.

"Melanie, when was the last time you met Robert?"

"Before he took a flight to Japan a month ago, he was going to meet a high Dan Judo fighter and I think he was raising to… seventh Dan? I'm not sure, but he is a red belt now."

"He has become strong," I commented "just as everyone."

The years toughened us all; in different ways, but in the end we were all stronger.

The celebration lasted for hours and we really enjoyed it. I think I never saw Sophie that happy in a long time… in fact, the last time I saw her that happy Matthew was still around. I smiled at her when she and Salaric where leaving for the hotel where they would spend the night and afterwards the house would be at my and Melanie's care for some days while they went to Hawaii for their honeymoon.

"Take good care of her." I told Salaric before the car started running.

"I will." He answered with a huge smile in his face. I could tell he felt nostalgic, he did not remember what a family was, but he was starting a new one.

The both of them left and eventually both me and Melanie got back home with the gifts. Link, Ash and Lucas helped us with them through the road to home. The night was shining briskly, the star seemed sad that night.

We finally arrived home. It was late, but nobody wanted to sleep.

"Now what?" Link asked "Will be always waiting for the enemy to move or we are going to do something?"

Melanie held his hand kindly and then she spoke calmly:

"Wolf has not made a single move yet, they can't be located, not in the desert, nor in any of my visions either, what can we exactly do?"

"For starters," Ash suggested "why don't we ask our angel boy what he knows about the topic?"

"I've tried," I assured "but he is very reticent of giving me any kind of information."

"Why do we trust Pit so much in the first place?" Lucas asked.

That question was a taboo one; we all asked ourselves that, but the fact of being saved by him so many different times made it hard to see him as an enemy, although we were all aware he could be just as Wario was, a spy, a traitor.

"We don't," I answered firmly "I'm going to get as much information as I can and then, if I figure that he is going to sell us for good or anything, my plasma whip will pierce his throat."

"Pit is tougher than that" Link warned me "and smarter too. If you want to keep an eye on him, you ought to be careful, he must not notice any change in your attitude or anything."

He was right, I could not let myself unguarded when I was around him.

I stared at the Peach trophy and I thought about the grey base; death. Then my mind reminded Mario, who was still in coma. I missed the times when we used to use this very living room as a strategy headquarters, looking for the way to stop Wolf. Now, we weren't even looking for the same as back then.

Eventually, everyone went to sleep, but I couldn't, I just stared at the trophy and I wondered about how it would feel. Was she watching us all trapped there? Was she in heaven? Or was she dreaming? It was the same as wondering about human death, you could not know until you die.

I stood up and walked downstairs to where Mario was sleeping. He breathed so normally, as if he was just sleeping, like a baby. A tear shed of my face as I wished that he would wake up and shape shift back to Matthew, but I knew that could not happen.

I got out of the house, sick of the environment there. Was Melanie right? Was it time to drop everything? Was it time to finally give up?

I received an unexpected call from an unknown number on my cell phone. I picked it up from the night table and answered.

"Hello?"

"Is it you Maquiel?"

The voice made me freeze. It was my father.

I gulped; I was sure that Sarah made everything to keep them as far from me as possible and so did Pit. Then, why was he calling me? How did he get my number? Since the last time we met I changed it around fifteen times. I took deep breath thinking on my words carefully.

"Are you ok?"

"Yes, I'm… no, I'm not."

"Did anything happen to you? Is mom safe? Is Sarah ok?"

"Yes, they are," his answer was brief and almost cold "I called you for some others reasons…"

"How did you get my number? Who gave it to you?"

"That doesn't matter Maquiel, we are going for you."

"Oh, that's not happening dad!" I replied "If you want to start acting like a caring father you could have done that many years ago!"

"Are you still mad at that?"

"Hell I'm!" I answered shedding tears out of anger "How am I supposed to forget? And also, if I decided to keep myself out of your reach is so that you can be safe, so don't screw that! At least for mom's and Sarah's sake!"

For an instance I was afraid; afraid that he was being watched, that he knew everything, which may be only Wolf controlling everything he was saying so he could lure me somewhere.

"This is different Maquiel; I won't let you to put yourself in danger."

"You don't know anything about me dad… you never did. FYI, I've been in constant danger for almost like four years, so don't come now to say you have to protect me. I'm not a child! You better protect Sarah!"

I could hear how his voice was now faint and I reminded how Gabriel was after he met his father. What if he was captive? Or if he was working for Wolf? My heart started beating fast and strong, scared of the possibility. I was praying so it wasn't like that.

He finally said:

"August 23. Remember."

The call finished and as soon as it was I threw the cell phone in the street and stomp on it as hard as I could. Then I started breathing fast, while a noisy steps where on the silent night. I sharpened my senses, trying to recognize the sound, but it was quite fast. Then, my surroundings were changing into one blue big platform floating in subspace. This was rare, especially because Matthew destroyed the subspace.

"Didn't you remember that I did this when I first recruited you?"

I looked at the shape behind me; it was Gabriel's in Fox's form.

"Gabriel." I said out loud.

"I'm Fox now, Gabriel is dead."

His words were so cold that I felt scared of that. But then I frowned and smiled.

"No he hasn't." I replied. For some reason I was happy, I didn't even care about asking of his rare ability "If you are here, then Matthew must be somewhere too!"

"He's not for you to reach," he said "and if you were smart you wouldn't be looking for him."

"Why not?"

"You have a role to play, just as Gabriel, just as Matthew," he said calmly "Gabriel did well on becoming a perfect vessel for me and now here I am, and so Matthew is for Wolf, so the only one left is you."

"I'm already bonded with Samus" I replied back.

Then, before he said anything, I understood what he meant and my face turned red.

"I'm not going to do the same thing Matthew did. I won't make his mistake."

"Mistake?" he asked releasing a brief laugh "Do you know why I'm here?"

"I supposed so you could kill me off."

"Wrong." He replied "I'm just a messenger, and you don't have to be scared of it Maquiel, you don't have to fight at all, all you gotta do is act as normal and when the time comes, you'll do just as Gabriel and Matthew did."

"Yeah, sure." Samus commented on my head laughing "Like I'd let that happen."

I stared at Gabriel, his words were really suspicious, but I knew I would not do such a thing.

"Do you want to see him that badly?"

"He's still there," I answered "I'm going to draw him out from Wolf's control."

"Please, do so!" his answer just thrilled me more "That's exactly how you are going to do it."

"Excuse me?"

"You'll try and you'll fail," he finally said "and in the end, in the despair you are going to play your role; even while I'm telling you that, you are such strong headed that you won't listen at all. You'll ask everyone and they'll tell you to give up, but you won't, because it's not who you are. In the end, you will play under Lord Wolf's game."