"Joey!"
He was snapped out of his thoughts when Cleo's head appeared at the top of his vision. Joey yelped and flopped over in his seat while Cleo took the chair across from him.
They were in a mostly empty cafe, at a corner table. Joey had the day off, so Cleo had asked him to meet her here. Looking at her, he could barely believe she was the same girl he'd met less than two weeks ago. She was buzzing with energy, a grin on her face.
"Cleo. What's up?" he asked carefully, looking at the sandwich he'd ordered.
"I feel amazing," she replied. "Okay, so you remember last week or whatever right? With the whole incident where Team Chaos attacked Lightning's house?"
"Yes, I remember." Joey frowned, wondering why she looked so hyper. During the incident itself, she'd seemed pretty anxious.
"Okay, so for like two days after that I didn't see anything. I didn't have to block out test answers, or close little rips in reality or anything!"
It took a moment for the information to sink in, but Joey's eyes widened when he realized the significance of it.
"At all?"
"Nothing! My brain is totally quiet."
"That's great!" Joey grinned. "Do you know why?"
"I dunno. But I think, based on some experiments I've been doing since, that I have to use it. Like, if you keep pouring water into a cup it'll overflow eventually, but if I focus on directing that water, I can control it and it stops overflowing. When I stopped using my powers, they started getting out of hand again, but when I used them they calmed down."
Her theory made enough sense. Joey's concerns about the current state of the Legion - and Lightning's place in it - faded away in the glow of Cleo's triumph.
"So, I decided to maybe try and see if I could find anything useful for you." She took a sip of her drink and grinned again.
"Are you sure?" Joey asked.
"Nothing that scares me too much. No nightmare fuel or anything. But I did try to find out more about that Executioner person."
"And?" Joey tensed, hoping she had something useful.
"Nothing. I can't see him. I mean, not really. I can see him working with someone - some guy Achilles put in prison a while back. But I can only see stuff where this Jumbo is present. Either that, or when someone else is present. Like, I can see him when Phantasma's present. The problem is, even with that, I can't make out any distinguishing features. I can only tell that it's a man. I think. The voice is fuzzy, but it sounds masculine, and the silhouette looks like a man's."
"Wait, you can't tell?" Joey asked, frowning. "And, wait, I thought you said no nightmare fuel?"
"I'm fine, Joey!" Cleo laughed. "I guess...maybe I'm going a bit overboard. I mean, I've been wrestling with this for almost a year now and finally I'm free. I feel...like the world's gained a new colour or something?"
"It doesn't scare you? You seemed pretty freaked out when you first told me about it."
"Distance maybe?" Cleo shrugged. "Like, the more I look at it, the more used to it I get? And if I get anxious, I can actually turn it off now. I mean, I can just watch fluffy news reports that are gonna come out in the next week or something."
"If you're sure..." Joey said, trailing off and taking another bite of his sandwich. "Just please make sure you don't push yourself too hard. Or hurt yourself."
"I'll be careful," Cleo said with a smile. "Thanks. It's kind of nice to be worried about by someone who gets it. I mean, not like I can tell my dad or any of my classmates."
"How are they doing, by the way?"
Cleo paused in thought. "I think they're fine. Well, as fine as anyone can be. Ronin was pretty important to the group. His girlfriend's got it the worst, probably. But...I think they'll be okay. Give them time and space to recover. Keep all these Miracle freaks away from them." She slowly sipped her drink, staring downward.
"I hope they get that."
"Future seems clear enough right now," Cleo replied. "But things are going to keep getting messier. The farther ahead I look, the murkier it is, but if we're not careful, I think Arx itself could be destroyed."
Joey almost choked on his sandwich at that.
"Oh. Sorry. Did I say something weird?" Cleo asked.
"You just casually said the world might get destroyed," Joey coughed.
"Not the world. Just Arx."
He stared at her. Sure, Arx wasn't technically the world, but it was all any of them knew. What was on the surface? The only time he'd ever thought about it was that time Phantasma threw him in that illusion. That weird illusion with the flat brown ground.
"Don't worry," Cleo said. "I'm keeping an eye on that outcome so we can prevent it."
"If there's anything you need me to do, tell me," Joey said. Even if he didn't want this whole hero thing - if the alternative was Arx's destruction, he'd do whatever it took.
"No worries. It's...really murky. I can't see anything solid except the city falling into the sea."
Joey shuddered. Cleo stared into her drink and slowly blew bubbles in it.
"So onto normal things, I guess. How have you been?" Cleo asked, glancing up at him.
"My brother managed to find a job, so we'll be moving out of our parents' place sometime soon. Once we can find an apartment anyway."
"Good. Sorry - I didn't mean to, but I kinda sorta saw a bit of how your parents treat Ned. Oh, sorry. Um..." Cleo looked away in embarrassment.
"It's okay," Joey laughed. "My brother's name is Ned, and he really likes games and art. He's got low self-confidence since he's struggled in school for as long as he's been in it. My parents are a bit hard on him because of it. So yeah, moving out will be good for him. And it'll be a bit easier for me to sneak around if there's only one other person living there."
"Anytime you need a quick getaway, let me know. I can open a portal between your room and anywhere you want."
"Thanks, Cleo. How have you been, aside from getting your powers under control?"
"Not bad. School's going well enough. We got to look at schematics for the various systems. Did you know Arx has a section below the Subways?"
"Below? For what?"
"Mostly piping and wiring, and the water treatment center. The main generator's also down there somewhere, but security is like massively strict. Only high-clearance drones are allowed down there."
"Guess that makes sense. Wouldn't want someone messing that up. Wait - "
"Don't say it, I already know. I mean, we just learned about it, and then I made the connection. If someone malicious somehow got down there, we'd be cooked. I've looked at it, though, and I think there's no chance of anyone getting down there. You need a sixty-four character passcode and biometric data."
"Sixty-four? Wait, but what about Ferry?" Cleo's face paled at that.
"Guess we gotta get her locked up..."
"Couldn't she just break out?"
"Crap." Cleo bit her nails and frowned. "I guess I'll spend more time looking into her. If I see anything dangerous, I'll let you know and pull you in. Lightning and the rest of the Legion too. I won't pull any punches if she's gonna bring the city down."
"Okay." Joey clenched his fist under the table.
At least now they knew where the biggest threat was. Knowing was the first step to countering.
