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Dear Andrew,

Firstly, fuck off. Don't bother getting our hopes up, okay? Do you remember what happened last time we thought that someone was a Moventis? Or the time before that? Or how about everyone else we had our suspicions about? Don't bother, because your hopes will be crushed again. Believe me, I know.

On the other hand, I am very interested in the potential for another Pugnator. If it's true, then we have a massive weapon in our hands. I mean, the last one was disappointing, to say the least. Getting beaten by a normal person is unacceptable. Hopefully this new one... you said she was in her twenties, as well! She hasn't even reached her best days yet. This battle is not lost!

But you do realise that they haven't arrived yet, right? You said they would be here within the week. It's now been a month, and no one has come to find me. Especially not your next pet project. They could be helpful, and we can still win this battle, but if you are trying to reach them the same way you always do, then they are going to die. Like all the others.

Still, I hope you've found your place. A safe spot, I mean. It wouldn't do to lose you. We're losing the US, and you dying certainly would not help that cause. Though I suppose they were shocked by your resistance. Pardon the pun. Still, a Pugnator and... okay, fine, maybe a Moventis, are fantastic. Britain is soon to become ours again.

All the best,

Shannon

Signed 30/04/18

"Mum!" Anna ran up to the receptionist, who was pulling out a gun from the deposit box she had opened. She didn't know what she was going to do, but she had to somehow stall the woman, however dangerous that task would be. She launched herself, knocking her off-balance, but Anna's body weight was not large, and the woman shrugged her off like it was nothing. Anna flew through the air, hitting the wall, and sinking to a heap on the ground.

However, the aim was achieved. Anna was unconscious on the floor, but as the woman turned around to where Melissa had been lying, she saw only a pair of legs. Melissa was furious. This woman was heartless enough to just chuck around a small child like that? And her child, as well. Before she replaced all thoughts with her goal, her outcome, she noticed something. Or rather, the absence of something.

Her headache had vanished.

She dropped to the ground, ducking underneath the bullets that were fired out of the woman's gun. From that position, she swept out with her left leg, felling her melee opponent in one swoop. The other woman crashed face first into the ground, but looked up immediately and punched out at Melissa.

Melissa, somehow, dodged the punch. Her brain was unable to keep up with the speed of her body, but it didn't matter. She just focused on evading the assault that the woman was attempting to hand out. It was tiring her body out. Dodging, and ducking, and weaving. Melissa wouldn't survive for long this way.

The woman swung a lazy haymaker at the side of Melissa's head, giving her the opportunity she needed. She latched on to the fist of the woman, and forced it to the side, using her momentum against her. The woman stumbled past Melissa, and from that position, she tripped the woman for the second time. However, this time, Melissa forgot to let go of her fist. The woman spun around on her fall, but her arm was trapped behind her back.

There was a sickening crunch.

Melissa looked away from the woman's dislocated shoulder, gagging as the image gripped her mind. She picked up the gun and ran over to a still unconscious Anna. "Oh, baby, please wake up, please, please..." Her eyelids fluttered.

"Did you get her, Mum?"

Melissa nearly laughed in relief. "Yep. I got her, sweetie. She's not going to be coming after us any time soon. Just... don't look at her, okay. It nearly made me sick." Melissa was ready to escape that place. But would it really be an escape? Or just a procrastination of the inevitable death of her and her daughter. Could they escape this world, that they hadn't even known existed until that morning? Or were they doomed, doomed to forever be trapped in this place, never being able to relax, never being able to focus...

"Mum. You're zoning out again."

Melissa snapped back to attention. Her mind was sharp again, headache nowhere to be found, and her body regaining all the strength that it had lost previously. Anna looked up at her, but the knowledge she had acquired provided her with no explanation as to why her mother was acting this way. She seemed unable to focus for long, erratic, and strangely violent.

"I'm not zoning out. I'm just... planning our next move." Anna shrugged off her uneasiness and followed her mother around the side of the room.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm finding the right box. The one we were meant to go to, not the one that woman led us to. Apparently, the right box has the answers that we need." Melissa stopped at 2234-C. "Here we go..." Melissa pulled at the box, but it wouldn't budge, causing her to tug more violently.

"Mum, stop. Maybe the woman has a key."

"You're... you're right. Sorry, Anna." She may have felt well, but Melissa was feeling different. That was the only word she could think of to describe her state. Just... different.

She walked over to the woman, who seemed to have fainted from the pain. "Still disgusting," she shuddered. She reached in with a tentative arm searching around her pockets, before withdrawing and going back to Anna, the keys held up in her right hand. The box now opened, she grabbed the papers inside, and shut the box with a loud bang.

"Ma'am?" The voice was coming from down the hall. Melissa heard the voice, and walked quickly out. "Where is the teller?"

Melissa shied her body away, attempting to look flirtatious and innocent. "I don't know, sir. Isn't she back already. She just left me here."

"She shouldn't have done that."

"Well, I don't know why she would do it, but she opened up our box and then just told us to grab what we needed. I was getting a bit lost. Thank you for coming and finding me."

The guard, suitably distracted, urged Melissa and Anna down the hall, and looked glad to see them go.

"What's gotten into you, Mum?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, whatever the hell just happened! That is not how you would usually act."

"And this isn't how our lives usually go." Melissa sounded cold, and immediately regretted it, seeing the hurt look on Anna's face. "We needed to get out as quickly as we could. That looked like our best option."

Anna conceded defeat. "Well, it was fast. Now, where do we go? Where does this woman that Andrew knows live?"

"How did you know about her? I never told you there was someone else." Anna started to fidget. "Anna?" Melissa tried to sound stern, but couldn't manage it, after everything that had just happened.

Anna held up the original letter, looking as guilty as possible. "I may have taken it from your possession. Without your consent. You were talking to the woman! I just wanted to know what was going on!"

"I-- whatever. How did you even learn to do this?"

"I read it. Somewhere. I can't remember where. Somewhere online. I was bored."

"So, after reading it once, you are able to execute it flawlessly?"

"There was a video, too."

"Still! I don't care that your memory is photographic, that's the sort of thing that should take ages to practice."

"I had time. I never did it to you. I just did at random when I was at school. And I was really good at it. Pretty much straight away."

"Oh God. I'm raising a thief." Melissa clasped her hands together, and brought them up to her face, before reaching back for the papers. "Okay. She is in Newport. Great. A full three and a half hours away."

"Well, we'd better get going then. Quickly. There are people looking for us." Melissa looked back at the entrance to the building and saw guards out the front.

"Shit. You're right." Melissa put the pedal to the metal and took off down the road.

It didn't take long for them to exit the London streets. And by the time they reached the M4, it was smooth sailing. "So. Anna. Tell me, what other things have you randomly learned online?"

"Ummmm... Not as much as you think. I'm learning the piano, and I'm learning Japanese. Not many different things, but big, difficult things."

"You could pretty much do any job you want. Maybe be a translator? That's a good job. You'd get to travel. And you'd get good pay."

"Mum, maybe we could do this later? I'm not an adult, I'm almost thirteen, and we have other issues that take precedence. If we don't... clear this up, a job isn't going to matter because I'll be dead."

"You are way too casual about this. Fair enough. I was getting a little ahead of myself. You do realise that at this rate, you would be on track to receive your uni degree by the age of seventeen."

"And I would be able to get any job. That can still happen. But we need to look at the present."

The sun was setting on the two, as they drove along the motorway, travelling towards what they hoped would be answers. Anna had fallen asleep, leaving Melissa alone with her thoughts. The time was approaching 7 o'clock. They wouldn't arrive at this random person's house until 8:30. They didn't have anywhere else to go. Melissa mentally looked at the 'couldn'ts' and 'didn'ts' of their lives. So many options, discarded and thrown out with the garbage, as they raced for their lives.

She took the appropriate exit, entering Newport at a slower pace. They drove through the streets, Melissa keeping her eyes open, having to focus on the road and the street names. Newport was certainly a quieter place than London, but Melissa's hatred for the city was still coming out in full force, as she watched the hustle and bustle, the overpopulation, the beeps and honks of the cars. She couldn't see the appeal.

The house that they had to pull into was an unusual one. It looked older than the other roads on the street, and the exterior was constructed completely from wood. Melissa woke Anna up as gently as she could, and together they walked up rickety steps, and knocked on the door.

It opened, revealing a short woman, at least two inches shorter than Melissa, dragging on a cigarette, which she then dropped. The flame went out instantly.

"Hi. We're--"

"I know who you are. You're the Pugnator and the supposed Moventis."

"Uh... no. My name is Mel--"

"No, trust me, you are. Just because you don't know what it means doesn't mean you aren't it. Andrew actually got someone to listen to his letters. I'll be damned."

"Well, we didn't, strictly speaking, listen. A man tried to kill us."

"And you killed him."

"How did you know?"

"Because you're a Pugnator."

This woman was starting to get on Melissa's nerves. "Can you at least tell us your name?"

"Shannon."

"Right. Shannon, do you have answers for us? Andrew said you would. About, like, why everyone is trying to murder us?"

"I do have answers. Which you will hear tomorrow. You aren't awake enough to listen now. This girl looks dead on her feet--"

"She just woke up."

"--and you've been driving for, what is it? About four hours. You both need rest."

"Rest can wait. We need answers!" Melissa was reaching the end of her rope, and she didn't bother to hide the frustration written all over her face. But Melissa's annoyed mood didn't stay for long. She was almost pumped up. Ready for action, anything the world could throw at her.

"You will get answers when you sleep! Please stop. Your daughter is looking stressed and tired, and I'm not going to repeat the information twice. You can both get it at the same time."

Melissa gave up. "Fine." She trudged into the house, without waiting for an invitation from Shannon, and entered a living room, lit by a roaring fireplace. It was rather aesthetically pleasing. "This is a wonderful place."

"Nice to see you're telling the truth." Melissa whipped her head around. "Most people, they would just lie about it, say it's a nice place, when in all reality they hate it, either genuine hate, or jealousy of the fact that they haven't got as nice a place."

"That's a cynical world view."

"I'm a cynical person. Come on, I've got spare bedrooms for you guys. A bed each. Safety. You'll be glad to have that, right?" Melissa accepted Shannon's offer, despite having the feeling that she would not be sleeping for a long time.

She was correct. Lying in the darkness, she stared up at the ceiling, listening to the soft snores of Anna in the next room over. She finally had a word, a word to describe the state of mind she'd had ever since the battle in the bank.

She felt alive.