5

Dear Melissa (and Anna too, I'm assuming),

So, you know how this is happening, and that means we can move on to the why.

Why did this start in the first place? Because the Romans weren't the most peaceful of civilisations. Basically, they thought about maybe, possibly, reaching a peaceful conclusion, but in the end settled back on their old favourite: fighting the problems away. Maybe it wasn't like your average, traditional war, but there was plenty of hate that fuelled the battles between the two sides.

The leaders of the group of people (this occurred before the division of the groups) were amazed by their abilities. But these abilities often drove them mad. Some of the most infamous and notorious Roman emperors ever, such as Caligula and Nero, were both originally powerful men who went insane after observing the sheer breadth of the powers.

And the same happens to people nowadays, too. Just because you don't see them... they're a different kind of crazy. The calculating, paranoid kind of crazy that allows them to elude capture for forever. Empowered people are rarely locked up in prisons or mental asylums. Mainly because if they were locked up, they would have escaped within 24 hours.

I'm telling you about this as a warning. Pugnators have a history of going off the rails, a result of the way their brains are developed structurally. Don't be one of those people, Melissa. Anyway, Caligula, Nero, even Claudius, were all parts of the different groups. They were completely convinced that their lives were the only ones that mattered. And that caused rifts.

People began to get disgruntled with the way that these people were behaving. Caligula's reign ended up getting him murdered! By the other side, obviously. It has been a feud running for about two thousand years! And it doesn't show any sign of stopping. Oh well. Just keep yourself safe, I guess.

Stay safe,

Andrew

Signed 30/03/2018

He walked down the alleyway, cleaning the blood off his knife with his shirt. It was an easy action. He didn't look back once. The man had been idiotic to pick a fight with him.

He stood out at the bar. Not because he was looking for a fight. Almost everyone there was. But because he wasn't there with anyone else, but still managed to dig into you, itching for a back-alley brawl, that he would inevitably win. He was doing the world a favour, really. Getting rid of all the dickheads. It was natural selection.

But he needed to stop. He had to focus on his goal now, what he hoped to achieve, with the new intel he had received from his 'superiors'. He didn't know who they were kidding. Nobody could be superior to him.

Except for this girl. A girl, reportedly like him, in nothing except power. She would be weak. He was strong, omnipotent, an unstoppable force. Nothing would get in his way. She was the one thing that could stop his plans.

He pulled out a cigarette. He'd noticed that the Americans were far more opposed to his smoking than the British. Not that anyone would say that to his face. The last person who had said that was now completely paralysed beneath the waist. He held the smoke in his lungs. 3, 2, 1... He blew out a steady stream. It felt so good.

He didn't care what the Americans thought of him, but, at the same time, it would be nice to enjoy being surrounded by others that looked like him. He was returning home, to the place of tea, crumpets, and cigarettes. He knew why he'd left.

But he had to come back. To eliminate this... threat, this young girl, possibly the only one on the planet that could challenge him. Ever. So he had to dispose of her, before she became too strong. There would be others around her. The Pugnator, nothing more than a nuisance, really. And Shannon. His old mentor. The cruel twist of fate. He would prefer not to harm her. But he would do whatever was necessary to complete his objective.

He crushed the cigarette under his foot, and glanced back at the fallen man. He was ready.

* * * *

Melissa hopped back.

The muscle memory had been correct. Anna was picking up on every move that her mother pulled with surprising ability and efficiency, and Melissa was having to pull more difficult strikes, despite not knowing what those strikes really were. She didn't want to hurt Anna too badly, but at the same time, Anna seemed to be relishing in the teachings of Melissa.

At last, Anna fell, collapsed after running out of energy. She may have been able to pull off the technique of anything you could think of, but she was still in a twelve-year-old’s body, and keeping up with a highly skilled adult was far too difficult. Melissa, on the other hand, was having fun, as Anna was already a better sparring partner than Shannon.

Shannon observed them, under a watchful eye. She was impressed. Melissa knew how the world worked and had a cool head atop relatively young shoulders. It was good that they had found another Pugnator. They were becoming harder to find. Not because they were becoming rarer, but because there were people who didn't have this power, who were still incredible fighters, simply because they had trained for that long. Melissa was not one of those people, quite evidently.

No, she said she hadn't had any lessons, that she didn't know how she had become this... incredible, unstoppable fighter. So, she could still improve. Shannon liked to think she still contributed to her family, but she knew that her best days were well past her. And no one was looking to her for answers anymore. No one cared about a mid-forties, past-it healer that suffered from alcoholism and enjoyed her many daily smokes. She was senile in their eyes.

A fresh influx of talent would serve them well. She considered the thought while ushering Melissa and Anna inside her house. Melissa, and Anna. She couldn't discount Anna, of course. She was already showcasing her incredible abilities, almost keeping up with her mother in their fight, beating her at chess, learning to pickpocket, different languages... she had recognised her intelligence, and used it to her advantage. She knew that she could learn to do all of these things, because she was so clever.

"What's on your mind, Shannon?" Melissa asked.

"You guys." Shannon always spoke with respect, giving people the knowledge that she would want if she asked the same thing. "How helpful you are. I mean, look at me. I'm considered one of the leading fighters in Britain, and I am forty-five years old, without any sort of fighting power whatsoever. I can heal things. Hooray," she added sarcastically. "That's how dire things have gotten. A Pugnator is nice, sure, but with no offence meant to you Melissa, your daughter is far more exciting."

"No offence taken. You keep talking about us as if we're the greatest thing to hit Britain in the last fifty years."

"Don't go too far. I just like you a lot."

"But you also only ever talk about our powers, as if they're the only things that matter."

"They are."

"You could try being a little less blunt next time."

"Sorry. But it's true. Without your powers, we would have no use for you. At all. Hell, without those abilities of yours, you'd still be living in that shithole, with no clue as to what was happening. So yes, they are the only things that matter."

"Speaking of powers..." Anna's voice sounded incredibly small up against the volume of the two women in the room. "I noticed something yesterday."

"Was it your telekinesis? Please tell me that you moved something without, you know, physically moving." Shannon went from blunt, unfeeling woman to excited schoolgirl in no time at all.

"I don't know. Maybe. Hold on." She turned to an upturned wine glass on the countertop, and strained with all her might, focusing upon the glass. She knew what she'd seen the other night, lying in bed, looking at the book on the bedside table. It had moved. Now she needed to display it to anyone she could.

It seemed to move. Ever so slightly. They couldn't really see it while it was moving. But it was in one position, and then, suddenly, it wasn't. It was to the left. "I believe that is confirmation."

"Yep, that works."

"Already. You are twelve, and you have already discovered your telekinesis. You are... unbelievable, Anna. Absolutely incredible." Anna blushed slightly under Shannon's praise.

"So now what do I do? I don't think that training with Mum is going to help anymore, at least not today. So how do I train my telekinesis?"

"However you can."

"That's helpful."

"You are such a rare phenomenon that there isn't a set regime for people like you to follow. So, I don't know how to play this. I guess I could train you like I did Riley..."

"Is that a good idea?" Melissa stepped in, with fierce protectiveness of her daughter. "Didn't you say he went a bit off the rails?"

"His current body count is at least 60, and is probably a lot higher. So, you're probably right. But it is genuinely the only idea I have. And, if I'm perfectly honest with you, I think he was already a lost cause by the time I got to him. Anna seems a lot nicer and gentler than he was."

"I just... I'm a little hesitant to commit her fully to whatever this is."

"There isn't a choice. Tell me, how do you help her to get to the best of her abilities, without any help? Riley was my first, okay? And I fucked up a little. But Anna will be different. I'll be able to keep her on our side, by learning lessons. Being taught by my mistakes."

Anna had had enough. They were now just disregarding her opinion altogether, trying to decide her future without using her input. She began to get a little upset. "Hey! Yes! Hello! It's me you're talking about. So, listen to me." The adults looked slightly taken aback, and sheepish, almost as if they'd forgotten she was there. "Shannon, let's get started with whatever this training is, okay? I'm not waiting around here for someone to eventually find me and kill me."

Anna was regretting her decision a mere twenty minutes later, as Shannon ran her through a series of drills, and a sour Melissa watched on from the sidelines. She didn't understand why she had to be trained in her real, physical body, when her superpowers were based purely around her mental abilities. She told Shannon so.

"You asked for this. The reason I'm doing all of this is because I'm guessing that your physical strength is linked to your telekinetic strength, but proportionate. For example, your body has barely reached the physical condition it needs to start controlling objects. But once your body strength improves, so will your telekinetic strength, and it should grow to the point that your telekinetic strength is actually far better than your physical strength. At least, I think so."

"So, this could all be pointless?"

"Yes. Now shut up. If you can talk, you aren't working hard enough. Let's go!" Anna rolled her eyes and continued with her sprints across Shannon's backyard.

"Hey, Shannon?"

"Yeah?"

"I kind of chopped my thumb a little bit? You said you were a healer, right?" Melissa would survive, but she really wanted to see Shannon's ability in action.

"You know, you could just ask to see me do this. Granted, I probably would have said no. So, fair enough." She gripped onto Melissa's thumb, squeezing to the point that the circulation in Melissa's digit was being cut off. Melissa didn't care. She watched in amazement as her blood vanished back into her thumb, and the skin magically reformed itself again.

"It's pretty cool, right?" Melissa nodded enthusiastically. "Do you know why I… indulge so much in things that’ll kill me?"

"No?" Melissa failed to see how this related to the conversation.

"It's because I enjoy it. And with my power, I can just heal any problems that are caused by the cigarettes and such. So, might as well use it to the fullest. Before you ask, no, it isn't useful to combat old age. I am not immortal."

Melissa laughed, and turned back to Anna, her wave of doubt about this woman's capability washing right back over her.

* * * *

In, out. In, out. Andrew sewed the stitches into his own skin, with great difficulty and great pain. But it had been worth it, to get the information. Word was out. Riley was on the move. He just didn't know where. Until now, that is. He wasn't happy with himself. He had resorted to torture. He swore he would never dip that low again. Here he was, breaking promises again, just to find out things that he vaguely knew anyway.

Riley on the move was never good. His path tended to include plenty of murder and injuries left behind him. Apparently, according to others, others that were higher up on the chain than Andrew ever would be, you could track Riley's movements to wherever he went, down to the nearest mile. Andrew didn't have the time to test this hypothesis, but he believed it. He had seen Riley fight. And the reason that you could find Riley based on who he killed and who he hurt?

Riley couldn't care less. He didn't care if anyone found him, because there wasn't any way that they would take him down, no matter who was sent. He knew this. And that was why Riley was so willing to let people find him, because he was in no danger. But others were in danger, around him. Riley was just crazy enough to not get caught.

He was heading for Anna. And so, Andrew would follow.