Breaking Down

Joan sat at her palm reading booth before the Daily Planet. The citizens of Metropolis walked briskly down the street behind her as they made their way to work. A chorus of car horns announced the arrival of the morning commute. Joan couldn’t help but smile at the liveliness of the city. There was a surprising lack of tension here, despite the many threats the city and its world had faced over the years. God’s Breath had been like this during King Siebold’s reign. It was only the years leading up to his death, when his people knew that his time was short, that fear and uncertainty had begun to slowly arise. The presence of the Equestrians had abated some of those fears, but not completely. Now, with Charles commanding a growing base of support in the city, fear was a daily part of life.

In Joan’s hands she held a resume, prepared the day before with the help of Lois Lane. It was a simple job to apply for. She would be Lois’ assistant, never to leave the Planet on official business but always there to take notes and calls for Ms. Lane when needed. There had been reports of alien creatures appearing all over the world in the last four weeks. They were all strange, all from different species and different worlds, and all desperately fleeing their homes for places unknown. Joan had predicted the last twelve major incidents across the world down to the last detail, and the last four incidents in Metropolis. Lois had reported on every prediction she had made, and offered her the job as a result.

Joan wanted to take it, but she was worried about Gilda. The griffon’s future was too dark to see clearly. It was the same with the members of the Justice League, and the Cybertronian Ada and Laurel had brought to Metropolis.

“Still no word on Clark,” Lois said from behind Joan. She sat down and handed her new friend a cup of coffee. “Any important visions today?”

“Not yet, but it’s still early.”

Joan took the coffee gratefully and used it to swallow three Ibuprofen tablets she had been holding onto. She had slept on the streets over the past four nights, buying food and clothing with the money she had earned from palm reading. Her income had been such that she had been able to feed the homeless humans she had encountered. Now that the Daily Planet had published her predictions of alien invaders, she was on track to become a global phenomenon. It was just one more stress stacked on top of so many. Gilda’s predicament worried Joan the most, not because she feared the griffon would come to hate humans. If she was a friend of the Champions of Harmony then she had a good heart. No, Joan feared that her impression of humanity, and her report to the princesses, would become jaded, and Equestria would withdraw from God’s Breath’s quest for an answer to Charles.

“Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in the building?” Lois asked, with a concerned frown. “You were up pretty late, last night.”

“You… saw me?” Joan said, a bit disconcerted at being watched.

“I had to work late on the alien story. Word is there are entire fleets fleeing through our solar system, hiding from each other and us. And you were walking around in public, right outside my window. Mind if I ask who you were talking to?”

“I was talking to a friend,” Joan replied, a bit embarrassed. She had forgotten about her surroundings in her excitement. “We’re connected telepathically. She’s in Gotham, right now.”

“You move your lips when you talk telepathically?”

“We move our lips when we talk through our mouths. That’s a habit that sometimes carries over to telepathic communication, especially for those who aren’t telepathic. I guess, since most people I talk to aren’t telepathic I’ve picked up that habit, too.”

“So this friend of yours isn’t psychic? What does she do?”

“She’s a… reporter.”

“She hear anything newsworthy?”

“There’s a gang war brewing in Gotham. With the alien attacks on the rise, the GPD is having difficulty dealing with the criminal factions. They’ve taken casualties, injuries, the cops are overworked, and they’ve just enlisted two barely trained recruit classes to makeup for the shortage of manpower.”

“GPD recruits are the best in the world. They have to be.”

“They’re still recruits making mistakes. They aren’t trained enough, and something terrible is coming. I can feel it.”

“Any idea what it is?” Lois asked as she turned her head and frowned.

“Just a face shrouded in darkness. Nothing more. My third eye is limited, I fear. Stress, exhaustion, and worry will do that.”

“Perhaps we can increase that sight of yours,” said a cool, confident voice from their right. A long, black limousine had parked beside the sidewalk and a man in a slick back suit had just stepped out of it. Lois had watched the car drive up while Joan had been speaking. Joan had felt the passenger’s presence as his car approached the Planet, but his thoughts were a jumbled mess, as if he were somehow jamming her from reading his mind.

“What do you want, Luthor?” Lois asked as she scowled angrily at the approaching billionaire.

“To solve this mystery, of course,” Lex said with a sly grin, his hands held behind his back. “I thought that, between us, Ms. Joan and I could solve the problem easily.”

“Of course you did,” Lois said, sarcastically.

Joan looked the man up and down, still trying to read him. His thoughts were no louder than anyone else, but they were unintelligible. His smirk told her not to trust him, as did Lois’ attitude. Still, she would rather know his mind before deciding how to proceed. She rubbed her temples and took another sip of coffee as Luthor’s jumbled thoughts ran through her mind. Then, suddenly and shockingly, they stopped. Two words, spoken in Luthor’s voice, replaced the gaggle of information for a brief second.

“I know.”

Joan lifted her head out of her hands and looked Lex in the eye. He still wore his arrogant smirk, but one of his hands had moved. His right hand was now inside of his jacket. Joan heard a mechanical click, and the noise of his jumbled thoughts returned. With a sly smile of her own, Joan stood and faced Lex. A red sports car drove up next to them and parked in front of the limousine.

“I’ll gladly go with you, Mr. Luthor,” Joan said as she walked to the door of the car. “However, I’d rather take my own transportation.”

Lex looked at the car, a sudden uneasiness flashing across his face for a moment before his arrogant smirk returned.

“Very well,” Lex said as he turned back to his limousine. “You may follow me to my mansion. I look forward to our meeting.”

“I’m going with you,” Lois said immediately. She walked toward the car, a determined look on her face, but Joan held up a hand to stop her.

“It’s alright,” Joan said with a confident smile. “I think I should meet with Mr. Luthor alone.”

“You don’t know what he’s capable of,” Lois said, angrily.

“I know what I need to know. I promise to tell you everything when I return.”

Lois opened her mouth to continue her protest, but Joan was already entering Sideswipe. All that the reporter saw was a naive young woman entering the back seat of a powerful sports car. Joan waved goodbye as Sideswipe pulled into the street behind Lex Luthor’s limousine.

“Are you sure about this?” Ada asked from the front seat. “Ms. Lane sounded pretty worried.”

“Yeah, this guy is bad news,” Sideswipe said. This was the second time Joan had ridden with him. He was a good person, if brash and arrogant. Though it had taken some thought after her first ride to decide that he wasn’t actually a ghost-type in disguise. She had told him this the next day. Sideswipe had laughed and told her that she was as strange to him as he was to her, but he was still happy to have met other travelers in this human-controlled world.

“What do you know of him?” Joan asked. Laurel and Ada had become fast friends with the Transformer, and she found herself following suit.

“He’s been in prison a few times. He’s a genius. Like, Shockwave level genius. He’s also a control freak, and he runs most of the city.”

“I couldn’t read his mind. He was blocking me, somehow. He only let me hear two words. He said ‘I know’.”

“He knows?” Laurel asked. “About us? But how?”

“I bet it’s a machine he’s built,” Ada said, more excitement than concern in her voice as Sideswipe followed the limousine through the gates of Lex Luthor’s manor house. “I bet we can sneak into his complex and get a good look while you talk, Lady Joan!”

“I don’t plan to stay long, Ada. I want us all ready to leave when I’ve confirmed some things.”

“What are you confirming, exactly?” Sideswipe asked as he came to park before Lex’s front door.

“I simply want to see how much he knows,” Joan replied. “And if he can be reasoned with.”

Sideswipe opened her door and she stepped out onto the grounds of Lex’s estate.

“Greetings, Madam Joan,” Lex said as he led his guest to a circular table on his veranda. “Would you care for some wine? I have a bottle of the finest prepared.”

“I’m not much for wine, I’m afraid,” Joan said as she accepted the chair his servant offered. A bright, red umbrella sat in the center of the table, though there was something off about it. Joan’s intuition told her to be careful of everything Lex offered her, though King Siebold had taught her at a young age to always seek the good in others. As such, it was in her nature to be trusting when dealing with people for the first time. But the feeling of danger was so strong with Lex, and the events of Octaria and Battleworld had scarred her subconscious so greatly, that she felt a lack of caution would be insane.

“A glass of water, perhaps?” Lex asked, his confident smile never fading. “Or cola? I also have a chef on standby to prepare a meal for us, if you would like.”

“What I would like is to get down to business. You blocked me from reading your mind only to give me a very pointed, very direct message.”

“I know,” Lex said.

“And what is it you know, Mr. Luthor?”

“I know that you are an alien yourself. I’ll admit, I don’t know what you, or your drivers look like, but I know that it isn’t human.”

“And what set you off to our deception?”

“You’ve been riding around in that car for the past three days. I believe that it’s part of a scouting mission from another world. There are others like it. My satellites have picked up seven, so far. They’ve seen life signs from vehicles without occupants. This would only make sense if these vehicles were, themselves, alive.”

“Perhaps your satellites are malfunctioning,” Joan, said as she felt Sideswipe’s fear and anger rise.

“Please, calm yourself friend,” Joan begged as she connected to Sideswipe’s mind. It always felt strange and mechanical when connecting to the minds of steel-types, a trait that Cybertronians shared. She could feel his desire to transform and tear apart Lex Luthor’s estate. She could also feel the presence of a dozen people, their minds blocked from her the same way Lex’s mind was. The only thing she could sense from them, intentionally she guessed, was that they were soldiers with high-powered weapons, and their sights were all trained on her and Sideswipe.

“He knows too much,” the Autobot said. “I haven’t even told you guys about the scouting mission, yet!”

“Is the car worried?” Lex said, casually. “Its lights began flashing when I mentioned its fellows.”

“Yet you don’t know where they are,” Joan replied confidently.

“What makes you think that?”

“I can’t read your mind or the minds of your henchmen, but I can still see the past and future. I can see you discovering my friend and his compatriots. You were shirtless, fresh from a sparring match with a martial artist named Jack Monroe. You defeated him easily, despite his world-class status. You outthought him, saw an opening as he attempted to leave the grappling position and take the match back into a standing position. He had attempted to take you with a kimora, had moved into a mounting position which you had reversed…”

“I get the point,” Lex said, his confidence faltering slightly. “You can know my past if you wish to, down to the tiniest detail. I have no way of blocking your sight from this, currently.”

“I also know that the night you discovered my friend and his comrades was the night of their arrival in your world,” Joan continued. She furrowed her brow in concentration as she worked through her visions. “You caught two of them on camera, my friend and the one with two smaller bots that ride with him. I believe his name is Drift.”

“You believe? That implies you don’t know for sure.”

“Not all details are easily seen. So many events happen in a day to any given person that serious meditation is often required to separate the important from the trivial. What I can gather now is, admittedly, tiring without a proper circle or access to a Center.”

“Which explains why your demonstration just now didn’t have much pertinent information,” Lex said, his confident smile returning. “I’ll also assume that, thus far, you’ve been too occupied with foreseeing the alien threat to look into me, much.”

“I do have my own problems to attend to,” Joan said. Sideswipe’s anger had subsided considerably, though she could feel his fear and distrust of Lex. “If you don’t want me to turn my attention to you, I suggest you don’t give me a reason to.”

“This meeting isn’t going as I had planned,” Lex said as he poured himself a glass of wine. “We got off topic.”

“That was caused by your poor attempt at blackmail.”

“I merely wanted your help in securing the safety of my world. I’ll admit, my means were a bit underhanded, but Earth’s greatest ‘heroes’ are currently gone. All we have are their understudies, who have no idea how to deal with this strange migration. If I may ask, what do your visions tell you of it?”

“Only that these species are fleeing for their lives from something dark and evil. Some of the alien fleets are a threat. This is true. Though I give you my word, I won’t allow your planet to be destroyed.”

“And you have the power to protect us all by yourself?” Lex asked incredulously.

“I am a general in a grand army,” Joan said as she rose from her table. “My people are diverse and powerful, as are our allies. Though we currently have a dispute to be settled, none of my kind wishes to see innocents die.”

“Fascinating,” Lex said as he swirled his wine around in its glass. His smile had changed. There was a strange fervor to it now, an anger Joan had not expected. “I do wish to protect my species, I truly do. You have given me much to think on. You may leave.”

He walked to the doors of his mansion, which opened automatically at his approach. He didn’t so much as look back at Joan before entering his house and leaving her sight.

“I think you may have told him a bit much,” Ada said as politely as she could on the drive through the gates. “I mean, I know it wasn’t much but for a guy like that it was probably enough to be dangerous.”

“I only wanted to reassure him…” Joan replied, though she couldn’t help but agree. “Now his future is dark and muddled, as well.”

“At least the second wave is coming in a week. That’s good, right?”

“Our preparations aren’t complete, though,” Laurel said, a note of concern in her voice. “We’ve barely even started!”

“What’s this ‘first wave’ and ‘second wave’ business about anyway?” Sideswipe said. “No offense, but it sounds like plans for an invasion.”

“We only wish to understand humans better,” Joan replied, reassuringly. “Take us for a long drive and we’ll tell you all about it.”

The four friends drove for hours, sharing stories and laughing. The Pokémon told Sideswipe all about the humans of their world and their quest to understand humanity better. When they explained that the future of Pokémon-Human relations relied on the answers they found, Sideswipe quieted down, prompting Joan to ask if he knew about humans in his own universe. He gave a short, uncomfortable laugh and changed the subject to Cybertronian racing equipment. Ada eagerly took this up. Joan decided she had talked enough for one day as she fell asleep in the back seat.