Samus had to get out of here, right now.

Absentmindedly, she tapped her foot against the hard floor of the restaurant; more than a little annoyed it was so crowded tonight. Surely she'd make a scene if she stood up and left, but what else was she to do? Samus was in danger.

Danger of having her night ruined, that is. Why did she ever agree to go on a date with Snake? It certainly wasn't his charisma that convinced her. The man was just insistent, she supposed, wearing her down over the months until Samus finally figured that if she allowed him to take her out just once, he would be satisfied. But the stench of cigarette smoke was only thinly veiled by cologne, and this cliché dinner date was boring her to tears.

"So my friends and I ended up renting this buggy, and we were going to use it to trek through the mountains," Snake continued. Either he was too wrapped up in his own tale to notice, or Samus was very good at hiding her disinterest. "But then my friend ended up crashing the darn thing while we were on a bridge. Can you believe that? It was a straight shot across and he still managed to ram it into something." He laughed. Samus supposed she was supposed to do the same, and managed to give him an almost-genuine chuckle.

Her date smiled, pleased that he had gotten a positive response. "In retrospect, maybe we shouldn't have let him drive. But yeah, we ended up having to pay for the damages and then went the entire way on foot because we couldn't afford another rental."

A thought struck Samus; a plan on how to politely save the rest of her evening.

She put on a look of realization, then regret. "I'm very sorry, Snake, tonight's been really nice but I just remembered that I was supposed to do maintenance work on R.O.B today," she started. Her date's smile twisted into a look of confusion, then disappointment. She stood up and grabbed her bag. "It must have slipped my mind, but I shouldn't wait any longer to do it, the poor thing might break down." Samus set a few bills down to cover the cost of her food, once again apologizing. "Really, I'm sorry; maybe we can do this another time?"

Snake sighed, but perked up at her offer of a second chance. "Yeah, don't worry about it; you do what you need to do." She smiled, satisfied with her half-lie. R.O.B did need maintenance, but it wasn't urgent and Shulk could handle any emergency repairs. Snake didn't know that, though. When she left the restaurant, she could see him out of the corner of her eye, sighing and leaning back in his seat, the frustration of a ruined date clear on his face. Samus only felt a little guilty.

Stepping into the cool night, she wasted no time in beginning her trek home. However, she'd only gone a few blocks down the road before anxiousness started creeping in the back of her head. Someone was following her. Her stroll turned into a brisk walk as her heart started pounding. Anyone stupid enough to mug her would find the unpleasant surprise that Samus could beat their ass into the ground, but that didn't mean she wanted to go through the trouble.

Suddenly, she turned into an alleyway and slowed her walk to examine the walls. Sometimes there were spaces in-between buildings which no normal human being could fit through, but Samus could. For someone who was quite tall, it was ironic that she was gifted with the strange ability to contort herself into impossible positions without breaking anything. Samus was a master at using this to her advantage, but with the alleyway bare of any escape routes, she could not use her ability now. Instead, she turned around and raised her fists, ready to engage whatever was following her.

A massive force slammed into her from behind, pinning her down. She kicked at the thing, using her heels to dig into its skin as much as possible. Whatever was holding her down let out a monstrous roar and released its grip. Samus scrambled back to her feet, tempted to just run while the beast recovered. But she had a feeling it would just start following her again, so instead she rushed forwards, fist raised to land a brutal uppercut. Before she could land another hit, it grabbed her by the arm and flung her against the wall. She resisted the urge to cry out in pain, putting her energy into getting back on her feet. A normal person probably would have had their bones broken from that throw, but Samus was not a normal person and she refused to go down so easily.

The beast came lumbering towards her again, passing under the rays of a streetlight for a moment, and Samus could finally see it was some kind of giant koopa. Except koopas normally were not this massive, and did not grow spikes on their shells. So what was this thing? There was little time for her to contemplate this, as the monster opened its mouth and started spewing fire.

Samus let a curse slip as she ducked out of the way, but the flames still licked at her and were no doubt going to leave nasty burns. She crawled out of range, grabbing a trash bag from the nearest dumpster and shoving it into the creature's mouth. The young woman hoped it would stop the fire, but it seemed the monster was more concerned with trying to charge her than immediately getting the trash out of its mouth. One hand grabbed her, claws sinking into her skin, while the beast ripped through the garbage bag with razor sharp teeth and spit out the contents.

"You're gonna pay for that little trick," it growled, before a fist collided with Samus' head and her world went black.

Robin should've paid more attention to their surroundings. Perhaps then they would've noticed the man spying on them for the past hour, and would've had more time to plan their actions.

Instead, they had been too busy skimming the bookshelf of the fantasy section in the library, observing the titles and contemplating which one to read next. They had taken a copy of Winds of Change off the bookshelf to preview the contents when a hand rested on their shoulder. Robin immediately spun around to face the culprit, a rather large man with curly orange hair and a stern look on his face.

"Can I help you?" They asked, and the man smirked.

"Yes. I need you to come with me."

Robin frowned. Out of the corner of their eye, they skimmed through the letters on the page they opened the book on, looking for anything useful in the event of a worst case scenario. This man did not look the least bit like someone Robin wanted to walk off alone with. "Why? Who are you?" They asked, but the man stayed relatively quiet.

"That's not important right now."

"Yes it is," Robin scoffed. Perhaps it was a bit rude to judge him based on his looks, but they couldn't help the uneasy feeling that began to rise in their gut from being in this man's presence. "I don't know who you are or what you want and you expect me to just follow you to who knows where, and trust that you won't try something?"

The stranger scowled, his grip on their shoulder tightening uncomfortably. "Let me rephrase myself: you're coming with me, and you don't have a choice in the matter."

"Are you seriously trying to kidnap me? In a public area?" Robin could not believe it. Either this guy was extremely stupid, or confident enough to know that he would get away with it. The latter thought was terrifying. "That's pretty bold."

With fear as a motivator, Robin did not wait for the man to make another move. They looked down at the book, searching for the sentence they had spotted earlier while skimming over the page. "The fire from the wizard's spell burned a brilliant red as it struck down his enemies." Robin recited from the page. Almost immediately, the paper began to heat up, and they turned the book around to face the stranger as the fireball described from the book materialized. It flew forth and slammed into the man, sending him stumbling back a few feet. Quickly, Robin took the opportunity to escape to the front desk.

Sitting there was a bored teenager, his own nose stuck in a book. As they came running up to him, he opened his mouth to comment about not running in the library when they cut him off. "Please call the cops, there's a man in here trying to abduct me."

The stranger in question had since recovered from the fire attack, and out of the corner of their eye Robin could see he was fast approaching them. However, the teen only shrugged at her. "Yeah? Then where is he?" When they pointed over to the stranger, it seemed he was no longer there, and the hall was empty.

"He was there just a moment ago! I swear!" Robin hurriedly explained, but the employee didn't look like he was buying into it. "Fine! If you won't call them, then can you at least lend me a phone so that I can?" When the teen shook his head, they were seriously starting to regret not having their own phone. Robin sighed in defeat. The man didn't look like he was going to try anything as long as there were witnesses, so for now they were safe standing by the front desk. But Robin couldn't just stand there and wait until he went away; it was highly unlikely that we would, especially since the library had to eventually close down and kick them out for the night.

Taking a deep breath, Robin strolled over to a different section, attempting to look calm and casual as they thought about how to make their escape. No strangers seemed to be around, let alone any nice enough to let them burrow a cell phone. It seemed like Robin's best chance was to make the run to the police station. However, they knew they were a dreadfully slow runner. There was no way they could outrun that man without some kind of self defense, which was why Robin was quickly browsing through book titles to try to find anything they could use as a weapon.

They were given little time to do so when the man reappeared again, keeping his stroll casual but getting closer and closer to Robin with each stride. Hastily, they grabbed a book off the shelf, stopped by the front desk again to check the book out, then bolted out the door.

As they ran, Robin flipped over page after page, trying to find something he could read aloud when the man inevitably caught up to him.

They were only halfway to the police station when Robin turned to glance behind them; the stranger had indeed followed them, and was only a few yards behind. At any minute he would be right on their heels. Robin's heart raced as the book they had picked up ended up being a romance novel; none of the words would be of any use here! Perhaps, since they had made it this far, Robin had a chance at making it to the station on speed alone.

Their legs burned as they forced them to move, to not slow down under any circumstance. Sweat beaded on their forehead, their heart pounded and their lungs struggled to bring in enough oxygen, but Robin was only one block away. As soon as they turned the corner-

A hand wrapped around Robin's wrist and yanked, hard. They screamed, the noise quickly muffled by another large hand. The last thing Robin saw was the man's wicked smile.

Two weeks after Samus' disappearance, the police gave up the search for her.

At first, Shulk didn't know who to be angry at, since there were plenty of people to blame. Why were the police giving up on her? Didn't they know how important Samus was to them? Didn't they know that without their help, they lost their biggest chance at finding her? Yet Mashs city was a large place, and police had bigger cases to put effort into than that of a missing person. It was unfair to Shulk, but reasonable on their part. Though the police never outwardly admitted it, they made it obvious that to them, Samus was nothing more than an unlucky person, caught at the wrong place and the wrong time.

Another target to place the blame on was Snake. When he first stopped by after hearing the news to check up on them, the homs would later regret that he lashed out at the man. Maybe if he had walked her home, then she wouldn't have been abducted (and Shulk was almost positive it she was abducted; Samus would have never purposefully abandoned them)! But Snake had explained his side of the story, how she had left him to finish the dinner by himself and not given him a chance to walk her home, and the anger drained out of the teen, replaced with grief.

Shulk was the most inclined to blame himself. For someone who could see the future, certainly it was his fault for not sensing the event before it happened? Deep down, he knew he shouldn't blame himself either, for visions were a sporadic thing, but that didn't stop him from being incredibly frustrated.

Still, life went on. Shulk dropped his classes and instead started taking more shifts at the electronics store he worked at. Even though the last of Samus' paychecks were still being paid to them, it was inevitable that if she was not found, they would stop coming, and Shulk was going to have to take the role of paying the bills. Mac had also insisted on getting a job, but the two had a long argument in which the elder adamantly refused. Shulk was not going to see Mac's grades decline or risk him dropping out when the boy was already so close to graduating. His bachelor's degree could wait and resume progress at any time; Mac's high school diploma could not.

One week after their fight and three weeks after Samus' disappearance, Mac unofficially moved out.

He'd said he come by every now and again, but had left with a bag in hand explaining that his coach was willing to let him stay over at his place. Their household had become even quieter than before, and the emptiness kept a heavy weight on Shulk's heart. Was Mac really still angry at him? Did he leave because he didn't want to be a burden, or was the homs not doing a good enough job of looking after everyone?

Again, it felt like more blame fell to Shulk, and he was at a loss on what to do, on how to make their situation any better. It was a lot harder to fix sad hearts than it was to fix a machine.

A month after Samus' disappearance, a peculiar story ended up on the news.

He'd been washing the dishes with Rock's help, keeping the TV on as background noise, when a spot of orange caught his eye. The boy looked up, watching a bit of the news coverage before a bright flash of blue flung him into the future.

"I'm not breaking that promise."

The world came back into focus, but did not stop spinning when it did. Shulk gripped the edge of the sink to steady himself, hearing the faint sound of a glass shattering against the floor. He'd have to clean that up later, but for now the boy was more focused on trying to ground himself, waiting for the detached feeling visions gave him to fade away. The tail end of the news report hummed in his ears. Apparently, someone had just had their house broken into, and the culprit had worn a strange metallic suit to hide their identity.

Shulk stopped paying attention after that, instead looking to where Rock had crawled on top of the sink to be tall enough to reach his shoulder. The robot had placed a hand there to try and comfort the homs. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." The older sighed.

"Why don't you go get some rest, you've been working really hard lately."

Shulk wanted to refuse, there were still things he had to do that day, but the look in Rock's eyes told him he wouldn't get very far by arguing against the idea.

"Alright," He dried his hands on a dish towel and trudged into his room, laying down on the bed but not making any effort to bundle underneath the covers. For a few minutes, he laid there, just enjoying the peace. At some point, Pikachu had padded into the room and jumped on the bed, the pokémon snuggling against his side. The homs absentmindedly ran his hand across the rodent's fur, eventually falling asleep.

Rosalina had not seen Robin in the library for at least a month, and she was seriously starting to worry. Normally, for the two of them going a little while without talking was not a big deal. Even though both of them frequented the public area, they also had different schedules. It wasn't unheard of if they simply had not run into each other for awhile.

However, the two almost never went more than a couple of weeks without meeting up, especially since the elementary school teacher liked having Robin pay visits to her classroom. Rosalina's voice, though soothing, was not always the most ideal to have when reading aloud to her students. She was by no means a boring person, but of the many times she's read to her students, she's also found the majority were quick to get distracted. Robin, on the other hand, seemed to have the complete opposite happen whenever they read. Even the rowdiest kids would pay attention whenever it was "Robin Day," as they dubbed it, and Rosalina greatly appreciated the help.

It was times like these that the woman wished her friend carried a phone with them, but a gut feeling told her that something wasn't right, and having a phone was not going to help her contact them at this point. But should she just jump to conclusions, and call the police? Rosalina doubted they would do anything if she couldn't provide any evidence her friend was in danger. Should she try to pay them a visit at their apartment? The teacher couldn't help but feel as if pulling such a stunt would be too intrusive on their personal life, but it had been a month, and the worry was eating away at Rosalina.

It took a bit of courage, but the teacher found herself in front of Robin's door the next afternoon. However, no response came after her gentle knocking. "Robin?" She hesitantly called, wondering if that would elicit a reply. Nothing happened.

Were they ignoring her? Were they simply not home? Was Rosalina's gut feeling right, and something bad had happened to them? The teacher had no way of knowing, and the uncertainty ate away at her faster than her worry had.

Almost subconsciously, she started paying more attention to the local news, but saw nothing of her friend. Which meant that either Robin was indeed safe, or whatever had happened to them was not gruesome enough for the media to want to cover it. This gave the teacher mixed feelings.

One story did catch her eye, though, more out of amusement than anything else. Someone had decided to commit the old-fashioned crime of robbing a bank, the person donning a mysterious black coat to hide their identity. The story sounded just like it came from the kinds of comic books her students liked to read, and though she felt a bit sorry that the unfortunate had happened, she couldn't help but find the whole scenario funny.

"Are you two still in one piece?" Lucina gasped for breath, leaning against the brick wall of the alleyway they had landed in. Even with her armor on, using her ability on all three of them had left her completely drained. However, the effort also most likely saved their lives.

Toon Link nodded, letting go of her and Dark Pit's hands to take a look at their new surroundings. As the smallest of their trio walked out to look at the city streets, Lucina rasped after him. "Don't go too far."

"He'll be fine," Dark Pit said, also taking a moment to scan their surroundings before helping Lucina keep herself steady against the wall. At any moment, she was most likely going to pass out. "You should worry about yourself first." It wasn't long before Toon Link returned, and Lucina greatly appreciated how contagious that little smile of his was. Dark Pit slung her arm around his shoulders, and together they trudged out into the street, Lucina practically dead weight against the winged boy. On their way to the nearest place they could sleep (which was hopefully a hotel), she insisted they stop by a small convenience store, but both Dark Pit and Toon Link denied her, worried more about the girl's health than seeing if they achieved their goal.

Thankfully, it only took about half an hour of walking before they came across a relatively cheap place. They were quick to rent a room for the night, and even quicker to crash on the freshly made beds.

In the morning, Lucina was the last of the three to take a seat at a table in the lounge, large amounts of the hotel's free breakfast food decorating their plates. Lucina might have been self conscious about how much they were taking, but at the same time they were all too hungry to care. Besides, it was the business' fault for making it free. It wasn't until she had at least eaten through her first muffin that Dark Pit handed her a newspaper, the item she had insisted on grabbing last night. Eagerly, she only spent a moment skimming through the headlines before examining the date.

Lucina sighed in relief. They weren't as far back as she wanted to go, but one year and eleven months should be enough time to give them a chance.

The girl set the newspaper back down, picking up another muffin and unwrapping it. "We're pretty far back, which is definitely good," she started, paused to take a bite, and then continued. "But I think at this point we're still too late to completely stop them, the best thing we can do is probably find the others and warn them."

Dark Pit looked up from his third waffle. "That's going to take forever, though, this city is huge! Why don't we just attack them while we still stand a chance?"

"And risk getting our asses kicked? Then we'd be screwed, and coming here would've been for nothing." Lucina said. Like Dark Pit, she also wasn't one who liked to waste time, but the fear of failure far outweighed her preference for efficiency at this point. Finishing her muffin, she took a long swig of orange juice and started on a bowl of cereal.

"Fine," Dark Pit huffed, finishing up the rest of his waffle. "Then where do we start?"

For a while, Lucina did not have an adequate response to give, and the three of them finished breakfast and returned to the room in relative silence. Dark Pit jumped into the shower and Toon Link settled back on the bed to watch TV as she contemplated their next move.

Even if this was a big city, certainly it couldn't be that hard to track down the people they were searching for, especially if they knew where to look? However, they were also on a time limit. Sure, almost two years was a lot of time to work with, but that was also how long it took for everything to go so horribly wrong that their future was no longer worth saving. If they couldn't change the future enough to prevent what happened in their own timeline by the time one year and eleven months passed by, this whole trip would have been for nothing.

But as much as Lucina wanted to prioritize finding those who were currently in the most danger, she was reluctant to admit that she also had to think about who would be nice enough to let three strangers crash at their house. The three of them had a limited supply of money, which would definitely run out after a couple more nights at the hotel. As selfish as it might have sounded, they would have a much harder time accomplishing their goals if they were stuck in the streets.

The bathroom door opened up, and Dark Pit stepped out. He sat down on the edge of one of the beds, glancing at the TV and then back to Lucina. "So, have you decided on what we're gonna do now?"

She nodded. "Yes, I think I know who we need to find first."

I have to say, I'm a little nervous. I've never really made a serious attempt at a multichapter fic before, but I think it'll be worth it to try. With the way I'm writing this, it's a bit tough to determine who to list as the main characters. So as a fair warning, I might change what's currently listed in the future. Thank you for reading!