Don't look back again

"You sure you are ok?"

"Yeah, I'm."

A short and final answer; I was still puzzled about what Gabriel told me, but in the end it was all a dream. When he said his final words I woke up in my bed next to Melanie, I suppose my brain wanted to give me a false hope about Matthew's hideout. I sighed and I got up, another peaceful day. It was not like I wanted something bad to happen, but everything was so normal, so common that I couldn't get used to it. The days were a routine, training, rest, hanging out with Melanie and the fellas, training again and then sleep time. I had my own house, but I spent most of the time in Melanie's house so we could be together in any eventually.

Even the smashers were now questioning their reasons to be here. They had no battle to fight, humans never noticed them and Wolf's party never showed up, so the only one who cared about staying was Link, because of Melanie, but for Ash, Lucas and Pikachu there was no reason at all, just being protected from the outside world. Nobody believed any longer that Matthew would ever appear again, not even me.

One day I walked down the city until I reached a bridge and stared at the dirty Mapocho River. It was almost dry, only a weak tiny flow of water still ran around the river. I took a picture out of my pocket and I stared at it next. It was from the day we graduated, I took a picture along Matthew, Gabriel and asked Robert (whom we invited to the ceremony) smiling. We decided that it would be the memory that would stick us as ally. It never worked. Somehow the three of them ended betraying me in different times. I laughed at it, and I threw the photo on the muddy water as I walked around the bridge, now I didn't know what reason was for me to be able to shape shift.

"Is it really necessary anymore?" I asked to myself.

"Are you really giving up? After all what Pit prepared you for?"

"What can I say Samus? I lost my time." I stated inside "It was stupid for me to think it'd work."

"Do you really think it's over?"

"Wolf sought for Matthew and he has him now, why would he attack us?"

"You got such a bad memory Maquiel."

"What do you mean?"

"Bowser left us, there's also Ike. We haven't known anything from them, but they are not in our side, nor Wolf's. If they were to attack, who would defend the city? You know better than I that you always liked the heroine role."

Although it was true I wasn't really interested in fighting them, I would only turn them into trophies and then…. What? The only real thing I wanted to do was unreachable for me at the time, there was no chance to fight Wolf yet, I wanted to struggle with him so badly, but… the only place I could dream of fighting him was my dream.

"We've been waiting too much time for them to appear, shouldn't we start searching for them?"

"Have you been asleep all the time? That's what we've been doing the last two years!"

"Wolf might have Matthew, but he's still there and you know that. Try to think as Matthew, if you wouldn't want to be detected, where do you think he would go?"

"I'm pretty sure Wolf's the mind behind the hideout, after all he is smarter than Matthew."

"Then try something that might relate Wolf! Have you tried reading Vincent's diary?"

"Melanie has read it whole in any possible way, if there was something there…"

"At least you try! Man! You're pissing me off; I have to deal everyday the same whipping about not finding Matthew. I thought we already talked about your overdependence Maquiel, if you want something done, do it by yourself! And quit crying for god sake! You will find the man!"

"Ok, ok, calm down, I'll give it a shot."

I sighed and then I headed back to Melanie's house briskly. The air was dense and the sky was pale, usual depressing Santiago landscape. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, which was stupid because thanks to that I crashed with a person.

"I'm sorry!" I said immediately.

But as soon as I took a deep look on the woman I recognized her and she recognized me. Before she could escape I grabbed her arm and she struggled with might to set herself free from me, but I had an advantage, I was too strong for her to break free.

"I know you," I declared "Anna Green, aren't you?"

"Maquiel." She said softly.

As I heard from Matthew four years ago, while we were still fighting Wolf, this woman was Gabriel's mother and she was kidnapped by Wolf so he could force him to work for him. If she was here now…

"I'm so glad to see you safe and sound!" I said cheerfully as I hugged her due to the flow of joy "Is Gabriel fine? How did you manage to escape?"

"What are you talking about?" she asked scared "Escape from where?"

"From Wolf's hideout!" I said full of hopes; it wasn't a dream, or an illusion, I had a clue of Matthew's hideout "Where have they move to? How is Matthew?"

"Maquiel, I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do! You were kidnapped!"

"Are you in crack?" she yelled as she struggled to get free.

I finally lost patient, all the joy became anger and with brute strength I pushed her hard against a wall that got a little bit cracked. People around us were beginning to notice us, as my eyes burned in green flames of determination. I hit the bricks next to Anna and I broke the wall, leaving a hole bigger than my fist beside her as a warning. She started shaking.

"You are going to spit it out bitch, if they erased it from your memory I will get it back punching the hell out your brain."

"Somebody help me!" Anna asked in yells.

"You have three seconds."

"Freeze."

I didn't punch her with might, I only slapped her quite strong and she coughed a little. I stared at her in despair.

"I've been searching for them for four damn years, and now you are going to make the wait over."

"I don't know, I swear…"

I felt hands pushing me backwards as random people started helping Anna.

"Tell me now!" I commanded while I struggled with the people that were pushing me.

She didn't doubt, she started running and I got the whole people suppressing me down with one movement. Around eight different people flew in different directions as I started running towards Anna. I was reaching her in no time, and she noticed that I was faster than her, an anti natural speed for a human, an agility of a super athlete. She realized that I was about to catch her and then she halted and so I did. She stared at me with terror.

"If I tell you one thing, they will kill me."

"We can protect you." I assured "Look, I'm sorry if I slapped you earlier, but I need your help."

"You can't do anything."

"Listen to me damn it!" I yelled as I stomped the floor cracking the concrete "I've been training too hard in order to face them and I had a good teacher. If you come with us, your soon will mostly return to us."

She looked at me with a terrified expression, did she doubt? At least that would give me some time to get information. I glimpsed a little smiled that lasted less than a second and then she stared at me with her usual terrified expression as her lips moved to form words.

"I can't go with you, but… you can meet Wolf…"

"How? When?"

Her mouth suddenly shut and there was an explosion near by. The noise covered the whole area and I stared at the flying metal parts of cars that were blown apart, one even cut a person in a half. I stared at Anna who showed instant terror and then I bite my lip, I knew what I had to do.

I shape shifted to Samus form and I ran forward the mass of fire, there were consecutives explosion, but the power suit took no damage from it. I tried to detect the people around with the sensors of the power suit, there were people who were death and some other that were near of it. I took as many people out of the fire and then I was about to make a call when I felt that something landed on my back with might.

"Long time no see." The voice said as I crashed on the concrete.

I turned around and then I send a plasma rope that trapped the man's right arm. It was Snake, as I supposed.

"I never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad to see you Snake."

"Who is the one talking?" he asked "Maquiel or Samus?"

"Maquiel." I answered.

I could see the disappointment in his face as a breeze of anger passed through me. His eyes stared at me, waiting for something, he was not moving. People were looking at us; some of them while running away, some other had no idea about what to do next. It was the first time in a long time a smasher attacked.

I gave a quick look to where Anna had been; she was no longer there, just as expected, but having Snake was good enough.

"Tell me where Wolf is."

"Have you no regrets?" he completely ignored my question, I noticed he was talking to Samus "How could you do that to me?"

"Look, you're talking to me, not to Samus, and you are going to answer."

"You answer me, damn it!" Snake commanded as he drew a grenade "Or do you need me to pull the words out of your lips?"

"This is not gonna end well, Snake." I said while charging my cannon "Tell me where Wolf is, or you'll get it bad."

"Come."

I shot a charged shot; it went faster than what he could read, so not even jumping to the right he could avoid it completely, he got his leg hurt on it. Also I ran faster than what he thought I would, and I impacted a punch on his face before he could activate his grenade, and then I pointed my cannon towards his back and released a stream of fire that burnt his skin. He yelled hard, but he didn't give in. He turned around and grabbed my arm to thrust me towards the ground, but stopped the fall by landing my knee on the ground and then I punched his cheek, throwing him downwards. I stomped on him and I charged the cannon.

"This charged shot will almost surely turn you into a trophy if it doesn't kill you." I threatened as Snake gulped "You are going to lead me to Matthew."

He laughed for an instance and I punched his face with my left fist.

"I'm sorry it ends this way Samus…"

"Answer me damn it!"

"Matthew is dead, and you know that."

"I'm not having this conversation with you, and either if he's dead or alive you're taking me to him."

"Who do you think I'm afraid the most of? A perky little girl or an overpowered wolf?"

"You made the wrong choice."

I released the charged shot in his head. At the moment of the impact he became a trophy. His base was still bronze, so he was still alive, just in his trophy form. I looked around me and there were still people in the place looking at me, waiting for something, so I couldn't shape shift back to my usual self until I found somewhere to hide.

Now I have a hint. I would take him back with Link and the others, that way we could interrogate him, we would make sure he would spill everything out.

I almost didn't care that Anna escaped; I just wished that she would be safe and out of Wolf's reach, I'd probably have to let Pit know so he could bring her some protection as he did with my parents and Robert's.

I ran through the city until I found some alley where I could shape shift back. I held Snake's trophy tightly as I walked back to Melanie's house. I was around fifteen minutes of distance and I started to get anxious, I ran fast expecting to get there as fast as possible, and I wanted to extract as much information as I could, but I was stopped. My arm was grabbed by someone strong enough to draw me inside an empty liquor store. There I recognized Pit.

"So they finally made a move."

"Pit! What are you doing here?"

"Same thing as you, looking for hints, clues, anything that might lead us to Wolf."

"Well, you could have told me, I haven't seen you in like two weeks."

"You were the one who asked for a break." He reminded me "How is Sophie doing anyway? Is she still on her honeymoon?"

"She won't be back until Friday."

"Oh, too bad, I expected she could help us."

I stared at him.

"Can't Melanie do something about it?"

"Of course she can," he said as he noticed my puzzled face "before you start asking questions I remind you I gave you many chances and you turned around every time I was about to say anything, so now I ask you not to question me. We have a very important clue and we need to know where Wolf is."

"Weren't you the one who told me no matter how much I trained I would not defeat Wolf?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Isn't this… contradictory? I mean, I like this change of heart, but it's too sudden… sure you wanna send me right away against Wolf?"

"Maquiel, you won't fight Wolf right away, what I taught you is how to survive, we will deal with him eventually, but we first need to know what he is up to, didn't I teach you that? You need to be one step ahead of your enemies?"

I nodded and I waited for something, I wasn't sure what Pit wanted to do, he didn't seem like moving, or anything, he only stared at Snake's trophy, looking with caution at it, like if his eyes would do something about it. I gave a quick peek at the store we were. It was new, clean, and full of different kinds of drink. It was really odd that there wasn't anyone around, even people outside didn't seem like entering in the store. I stared at Pit and wondered what he did to the people here. He gave me a smile back.

"Don't worry, humans won't enter here. Now, would you be so kind to bring everyone here?"

I drew my cell phone and I called fast at Melanie. The phone rang two times and then she answered. Before she could talk I gave a quick look at the outside searching for the name of the streets. As soon as I saw them I just told them to Melanie and I hanged out, I knew she would come right away. I didn't spend any time on details, because I knew Pit, he was able to vanish in front of my view and leave me there all by myself, so I wanted to keep an eye on him.

"Shouldn't we revive him and ask?"

"Not yet, but you might want to shape shift."

"Why?"

"Should you really ask? Your power suit has more functions than just fighting, try to use it wisely."

"Ok."

I shape shifted; I didn't understand what he meant about using my power suit wisely, all what I knew about was how to launch some missiles, fire, charged shot, the zero laser… fighting was the only thing I was aware of in this suit, it let me defend myself. I gave it a deep thought, but nothing came from it. Pit sighed.

"The power suit is a high-tech suit, in which you can fight, but also you can do a lot of things, sense heat, crack passwords, among many others uses. Don't you remember that Sonic abducted you in order to crack a password to unleash the subspace?"

"Oh, yeah! It was so long ago that I didn't remember."

"If Snake has been lately with his companions then your suit may be able to detect a trace of energy that does not belong to Snake."

"Meaning?

"Imagine that you're a dog and a policeman gives you the scent of a missing person, you can smell that in anything that has the scent and then you follow it to the place where the missing person. That's what we're going to do."

"Melanie can do the same thing and I think it'll be easier for her, she sees souls and scents."

"Wolf already knows that, so maybe he took a step ahead that. Melanie hasn't been able to detect them in four years, why now?"

"Wouldn't he take prevention about me?

"Try and see if we finally found a flaw on Wolf."

"Fine, but how?"

Pit sighed again, I was starting to irritate him and I knew by experience that anything good would ever come from that. He just kept shut for a minute; I didn't know if he either ignored how or if he was expecting me how to realize about it. Either way the others managed to get to the store, they were the only people who were able to get into the place and they were as puzzled as I on why they could not see the place inside, after all humans would rarely ignore an angel boy and a cyber girl.

Melanie did not speak, but nodded.

"Nice one Pit." She said "I didn't know you controlled these kinds of spells."

"What spell?"

"He's keeping this store out from human sight." Melanie explained "I've always wondered Pit, where do you get all these powers? Teleportation, psychokinetic, spells, have you ever ate a human being?"

The question was not only rude, but an actual accusation. Melanie didn't hold any longer such a mystery; she wanted to know as badly as anyone else including me. I stared at Pit, scared that he might do something reckless, waiting for his answer.

"No, I haven't." His answer wasn't cold, it was only short, but what really kept us in doubt was his big smile "There's nothing to worry about, I'm not like Wolf."

"Where the hell do you get such powers?" This time it was Ash who asked "What are you hiding from us?"

Pit looked at me kind of annoyed, but then his face turned into a relaxed and calmed expression that made me flinch, I didn't understand what his expression meant, and it even scared me.

"I'll only talk to Maquiel about it." He finally said "But now we have better things to do. Maquiel I want you to ask Samus to prepare her suit in order to track a plasma track."

"Piece of cake." Samus said to me.

"Spiritual awareness is useless when it comes to track Wolf down; he is hiding Matthew's scent, so we can trace his energy."

"So Maquiel can trace them down." Melanie said hopeful and then a tear came down his eye "Oh my god… we're seeing him…"

Link had to hold Melanie with his arms as she was about to faint. Everyone seemed cheer up and they were expectant to my doing.

"I'm going to revive him." Pit said "As soon as he is alive you gotta do this fast."