"It's a tree," I said.

A fancy tree, sure, but that was mostly on the shit surrounding the tree and not much to do with the stick itself. Colorful geometric patterns had been inlaid on the floor, as though to make it as similar as possible to gazing through a kaleidoscope. It was easily the most color I'd seen since setting foot in Oasis, and yet, I was still entirely underwhelmed.

"Are you sure you're not a cult?" I asked, turning to Rio.

"We're not a cult," she pouted.

"You worship a stick."

"Still your tongue, heretic," Dragon drawled. "You are in a presence beyond your ken."

I gave the thing another up and down to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

It was big. Probably really, really old, though I hadn't brushed up on enough arbory to tell what kind or how old. It was a straight, dark-barked tree, with a few scars, a handful of branches, and just as many leaves as I did. Sure, it had a trunk large enough that I probably couldn't wrap my arms all the way around it, but it was the room doing all the impressing. The vaulted ceiling, the tall, narrow windows casting slanted beams of light from the sunset, it was all very dramatic and very properly holy-looking.

But still just a tree.

"Yeah, I don't see it," I said. "I must be missing the holy spirit or something. Looks like a dead tree to me."

"You should know by now that looks are kind of immaterial," Rio said thoughtfully. "After all you've learned about how the visions work, appearance can change, can be taken away. It's capability and legacy that defines something."

I continued to stare at the tree. "Uh, so...this tree's got like...the capacity to stand here I guess? Maybe if the light hits it right, it could cast a shadow. I guess you could turn it to kindling, but it can probably only do that trick once...and that'd put a bit of a crimp on the whole 'legacy' element." I frowned at her. "Are you sure this is really your god? You're not like, pulling my leg or something?"

"She should be dead," Dragon intoned, and Rio shook her head at him.

"She was chosen. Her perspective was what our god sought."

"She wasn't chosen, she is…" he trailed off with an irritated sigh. He knew he was just going in circles with her at least. Saved me from hearing the same argument again and again.

But still.

I'd been scrutinizing the hell out of this tree, trying to find anything remotely exciting or divine about it and coming up real short. Which was a serious issue, because, if I couldn't figure out how to kill it, I wouldn't be able to break the visions and set the others free.

But how the hell does one kill a dead tree?

Especially with Dragon breathing down my neck, I couldn't very well whip out a chainsaw and then burn the remains. But even so, it was a fucking dead tree. Unless it somehow grew around some insane future tech and then died and was enshrined in this whole bizarro-city, hundreds of years ago, I didn't think chopping or burning would achieve much.

Which just left me wondering, what then could I do here? I had no intention of being 'tested' by their god as I'd proposed. As I saw the situation, Dragon was actually right-on. The only reason I had sway over the priests was because Rio told them to hear me, and the only reason I wasn't trapped in the visions with the rest was because I wasn't human.

So if it came to looking to reading some kind of divine portent...I saw my chances as a coin-flip at best.

"Well, let's get started, then," Rio said helpfully, tugging the sleeve of my non-destroyed arm. "Kneel here, next to me. And we'll pray."

"Oh goodie."

"Sometimes, if you pray hard enough, our god will give you a vision. It can take awhile and…" she glanced at Dragon. "And they're not always terribly helpful. It requires a lot of focus."

"It happens very rarely," Dragon clarified. "And most always when there is a code-X to be dispatched."

"Yes," fretted Rio. "While you may not understand or agree with a lot of our tenets, or have cause to doubt, I think there's very little room for debate with our god's stance on code-X's."

"Rough life for them," I shrugged. "XPCA, and you guys, too. Is there anyone who doesn't want 'em dead?"

"I suspect not," Rio said.

Because of course nobody would. Who'd ever want someone around who could fundamentally alter who you were? That would be as ridiculous as deifying a tree which could make everyone around it have visions.

To be sure, I checked the air for impurities and came up empty. It wasn't like, dumping out mind-fuck spores or anything like that. Just a goddamn tree.

Rio began to chant, or I assumed that's what she was doing, but it was hard to tell, being in a language alien to me. Chinese, I had to assume, though I had little basis for that guess. It struck me as odd that that was apparently not a dead language around here somehow, even though apparently everyone also spoke English.

Then again, Rio wasn't Sino, I'd gathered. She'd mentioned off-hand that Dragon was born here, but that he was the minority, and that most were invitees. So had she just picked up a dead language so she could bark it at the tree, or what? This place made less sense by the minute.

Though I guess that wasn't actually any worse than holding mass in Latin. So maybe I'd bite my tongue on that one. But mostly because I was probably running out of remarks I was allowed to throw out before Dragon really did kill me.

Rio really got into it though, her voice rising and falling as she carefully enunciated her way through an avalanche of tonal sounds. Her words echoed off the smooth stone when her voice peaked, and in the moments after, it almost sounded like the chamber itself was chanting back at us.

She was saying something, mid-sentence, when I heard the echoing of a distant explosion and jumped to my feet by instinct. Dragon was there as well, blade-in-hand and ready, while Rio just looked around, catching up to us.

Another explosion, from directly behind us.

"Is this the vision?" Rio asked.

"No. We all hear it," Dragon replied.

"Then...what?" she asked.

The knife in his hand pointed at my face, the silver shining dangerous, only inches from me. "Her doing, I imagine."

"I've been here," I said. "I don't have explosives."

He stared at me, his eyes equal parts furious and bored, a combination I didn't know was possible. Maybe he just had like, resting bored face or something, and I'd been selling him short this whole time? Seemed unlikely. And more unlikely that I'd even care.

"Outsiders, maybe?" Rio asked.

"It must be. I do not hear the guard."

"They could not have been defeated."

I looked at her and then back at him. "Wait, why aren't you blaming this all on Athan? I'm sure you know he's in the city."

"He is in the visions. Ready yourself, Rio, for interlopers."

"Yeah, you only think he's in your visions. You're a tough cookie, Dragon, but you consistently underestimate us. That's how you lost that arm, and that's why we haven't been stopped, no matter how many of your shitty toad toadies you throw our way."

He looked at me like he didn't even understand what I was saying, but it was only a glance, before heading with Rio towards the armories. The message was still clear though, the guy couldn't believe for a second that anyone or anything could slip through his precious visions. That was just a fact of his world.

And I did so look forward to the expression on his face when he was proven wrong. I had no doubt it was Athan making that ruckus out there. The explosions were consistent with the micro-missiles that Karu packed, and the direction was the inner gate in the direction they'd all been. I had no idea how they'd broken out of it, but there wasn't any spell which could hold my boy down.

I grinned, beside myself. Guess I didn't need to fuck with this tree after all. Athan had it handled himself. Now the six of us could all kick Dragon's ass, tell Rio to stop shipping her doom-sticks to IkaCo, maybe grab one or two for the road, and we'd be golden.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

So I was practically skipping as I followed the two as they scuttled about, grabbing weapons and preparing before making a beeline for the gate. Once the fight broke out, I'd go straight for Dragon, because I knew Athan would, and maybe together, we could drop him early and painlessly.

It was an optimistic plan, but I was in an optimistic mood. They'd broken out! They'd already done the impossible.

Dragon assembled a line of his priests and stood ready at the doorway, while Rio fretted about somewhere behind him, pacing back and forth as she decided which weapons to bring to bear. I noticed Dragon and the priests didn't take any, preferring to fight with their own powers, I guessed. Or maybe...for the priests, maybe there weren't even any weapons in their realities. Hard to tell. But I wasn't gonna wait around.

I headed for the gate, the whole area thick with smoke, and found the stone slab of of the innermost door shattered and collapsing. Still standing, but it trembled and crumbled with every echoing boom, becoming a wider and shorter pile of rubble each time it was struck. Until finally…

"Karu!" I shouted, as I glimpsed her through the debris of the last explosion. Just a red flash over the rubble, but unmistakable. "You made it!"

Once I was sure she'd stopped shooting, I started moving rubble as best I could to clear a path for them. It wasn't long before our combined efforts opened a small gap, through which I could see all of them, standing in a loose semi-circle around the gate, sweaty from moving rock.

Well, except Saga, who was taking a supervisory role. And Tem, who wasn't here at all.

"Athan!" I shouted at him, struggling my way through the gap, and only getting stuck once or twice. "Athan! It's me!"

I felt the need to add the last part because he didn't seem to see me. Or rather, didn't seem to see me. As I struggled to approach, he glared violently at me, stern and wary, and as I finally pulled my busted arm through behind me, was greeted by blades of lightning in my face.

"It's me," I said reassuringly.

Looking around, I could see plenty else was wrong with this picture. Nobody was speaking. Everybody looked a little unfocused, especially Saga, who looked, also, too focused. And...strangest of all, the guards at the gate were still standing right there, totally unphased by the fact the gate they were guarding had been turned to rubble. Nothing was quite adding up, and especially nothing involving the swords in my face.

While he threatened me, he was waving his hand in the air like he was typing on something which wasn't there, a gesture I wouldn't have recognized if I hadn't done it thousands of times before. My compromise of making it more obvious to others when I was doing computer stuff in my head.

I beamed. It must have been a message or gesture for me. Maybe he still couldn't talk or something, so he was miming out at me. Without hesitating, I projected the holo-keyboard before me and typed back at him. A gesture which gave him pause and stilled the blades in the air. After a moment he started typing again, and I stared at his fingers, doing some mental projection to follow his keystrokes and what buttons he might be hitting.

> --like the guards, doesn't seem aggressive just yet. Saga, is she just another toad like the others?

Well that was reassuring. I typed him a response but he hardly even seemed to be looking. Instead, they all stood there awkwardly, taking far too long in doing nothing.

And the longer I stood there, watching the focus and consternation across all their faces, the more I realized just how not-alright this situation was. Something here was massively screwy, and there was only one explanation I could think of.

Somehow, they were still here, still fighting, while still trapped in the visions. It was the only thing that made sense, despite making no sense at all. But given that they weren't communicating effectively, that they couldn't see me and know who I was, it was obvious that they weren't perceiving the world the same way I was. And the fact that nobody else in the city seemed after them...somehow, they'd gone rogue without being picked up as a threat. The guards were here to repel outsiders, Rio had been very clear on that. Which meant they weren't -- they were still part of Oasis, just...a cancer, basically. Slipping by the immune system by supposedly belonging.

But that was still awful. Not the least of which being that Athan was right there and he couldn't even see me, but also that in their current state, Dragon could kill them all before they even knew what was going on. It was entirely possible their vision didn't even include him in it, or the priests. They weren't supposed to go past this gate ever, and maybe once they did, their senses would just break entirely.

Or, more optimistically, the visions would. Looking at the guards standing there idly, it was obvious that some glitch in the city's logic was being exploited here. If Athan kept pushing, he could break it entirely...but what kind of break that would cause, I was pretty sure nobody knew.

But there was only one way to find out. When I was sure Athan was looking at me again, I gestured at typing at him a few more lines, and then got back to shoving rock to make a path they could squeeze through.

While I worked, he continued to stand and study, and every once in a while, typed out some thoughts to the others.

> Think she's just here to clear out any messes in the city?

> Karu, no. At least for now, she seems to be helping at least.

> Saga, are you sure?

So it went, the rocks shifting with frustrating slowness given that I had only a single arm and a banged-up body to work with. If nothing else, at least I was being useful now. There wasn't much left in me for a fight, so if I could keep them fresh...I guess that was all I could manage.

I had an idea though, as I reached a rock too big to shove, but almost cracked down the middle. I took a step back, and very deliberately prepped and dropped a pair of kicks on it. Axe kicks, holding the pose before the kick with my leg straight up for just a few unnecessary moments before dropping my leg.

Honestly it didn't do much to the rock, but I hoped that flashing my panties at him would jar something. If he didn't remember that, he was in big trouble. With me.

But just as I'd hoped, after dropping the first one, he started typing again, more animatedly this time.

> Do you guys think this is AEGIS? Saga said she couldn't feel anyone there. I thought it was just a fake person but we all see her, right?

> Karu, no shooting. She kicked a fuckin rock. How many Exhumans can do that? And with that kick? That's AEGIS' favorite kick.

> Lia, I know it could be fake, but she's not exactly telling us to leave, is she? She seems to be helping.

Man this was frustrating. I could only imagine what it must be like for them, having to second-guess and take a group consensus on literally everything they were seeing, all the time, just to know what existed and didn't. And even then, there must have been things they could all see which just...weren't. Like they suspected of me.

And telling them to leave. I wondered how many of their visions were designed specifically to throw them off. All of them, probably. The visions had been explicitly designed to keep them in their roles...a cage for the mind. The only things any of them trusted at this point was each other.

Nothing much happened for the next few minutes except for the gap widening to the point where even Karu could make it through with her armor. She could have just flown over the wall but...I was trying to communicate here, damn it. Finally satisfied, I stopped, backed away from the gap, and gave them a gesture to continue on.

Lia started forward first, only to be held back by Athan, who advanced painfully slowly. He seemed to be checking my work, waving his hands through the rock I'd shifted as though checking it was actually gone, and again, I had to wonder just what they'd been put through. Being unable to trust your own senses must really, really suck.

But after he'd determined the gap was really there, he backed out and went to me, swords hanging back, his gaze scrutinizing and calm. I swallowed hard at his approach, and again as he took my hand in his.

"AEGIS, if this is you...I'm sorry," he said, and gave me a sympathetic smile. And then electricity coursed through me a dozen ways at once.

The shock of the sudden pain brought me to my knees more than anything, red-hot trails torn through my body, and the stink of superheated fluids and melting insulation, but mostly, my body did its job and kept the current out of anything critical. Some of that cage had been compromised with the damage I'd sustained, and it hurt and disabled me a lot more than it should have, but I was still here, still gasping and struggling to my feet, instead of dead on the ground with a stopped heart like any meatbag would have been.

I smiled and gave him a nod as I recovered myself and vented away the sudden heat buildup. I was only halfway through when he suddenly wrapped his arms around me, and then yelped and jumped backwards with burnt hands.

Almost by instinct, I was there with medical gel to spray down his hands. Unnecessary, only second-degree burns at worst. But burns weren't something I liked to mess around with, and the fact he'd gotten them on me…

I had to pause when I heard him laughing, despite the pain. I gave him a quizzical look, but of course, we couldn't really communicate. I had to settle for just cleaning him up as best I could.

When suddenly, again, he spoke directly to me.

"It really is you, isn't it AEGIS? I don't think there's an Exhuman in the world who'd kick apart a rock and then jump to first aid the same way you do. Sorry for not seeing you."

"It's okay. Hold still, please," I said, but he heard none of it.

"Yeah there's something wrong with all of our senses. I guess...I hope anyway...that you can tell what's going on. We're all kind of a mess right now."

I took care in bandaging his hands not to limit his motion at all. He'd have a fight coming up, and needed to be at his best. I wasn't going to let some injury I'd caused be his death, after all this.

"Thanks," he said, as I finished, and moved to withdraw his hand, but I held onto it a moment longer. He seemed content to give me that, and as much as I just wanted to hold him and linger, I had something too important to convey.

I pointed at the smashed gate, and he followed my gesture and nodded. And then slowly, deliberately, on the palm of his hand, I drew out letters.

The first time he didn't get it. Cocked his head like I was just reading his palm. I gave him a little shake and tried again, and this time, he figured out they were letters but missed the meaning. The third time, I saw him mouthing out the characters as I wrote.

D-R-A-G-O-N

He stood and faced the gate, his shoulders set, his jaw clenched.

"Thanks," he said, without turning towards me. "I guess I know whose fault this whole mess is, now." He sighed. "But in our current state, I'm not sure we can take him. Maybe...maybe if we try to get Tem again. Or...or had some better communication. But as it is…"

He frowned and looked around at the others. They, who didn't even know Dragon was in the picture still. Who might even still not know it was me. He had a point.

But then he turned back to me, rigid, but slumped. Eyes blazing but wary. Defeated and resigned, but also determined, all at once. "But we really don't have another choice. Saga says that we're getting worse. We only have a few more hours before she won't be able to link us anymore. If we're gonna do it...we're gonna do it now."

He let go of my hands and headed for the cracked gate, and I knew it would do no good to ask what he meant. It would be all I could do to help them prepare, as our final showdown with Dragon loomed.

It seemed like destiny or something that he was always standing in our way. And on some level, it was a relief that it looked like this would be the last time. Maybe not the last time in the way I'd have liked but…

I let that thought go and followed Athan through the gap in the door, and into the inner city beyond.