I crawled through the gap and found myself staring down a veritable phalanx of toads, huge muscled dudes who wouldn't have looked out of place oiled-up and flexing at a pageant. Unfortunately for me, they weren't, and instead were all lined up and awaiting my entrance.

And behind them, Dragon, unmistakable. His eyes frosty and dead. It was nice to know that I was able to see all of them through the illusion. If I died here in a few seconds, I'd at least be able to see what killed me, which was incredibly reassuring.

Next to Dragon was a much smaller girl in a lab coat, Rio, whom I guess I'd met the first day I was in Oasis, before spending too long seeing her in my visions. I had to wonder just how much I'd learned about her in that time was actually true, or if it was just my brain going off in whatever directions it thought made sense to fill in the gaps and keep me sedate. I didn't feel very sedate on seeing her now, though.

Not that I had too much issue with her personally, of course, but more in the company she kept.

AEGIS squeezed through behind me, and Lia behind her, the thin girl barely needing to contort to make it through the gap. I had to wonder why Dragon wasn't simply shooting us in the face while we were squeezing our way in, but I suspected the reason had to do with him being an asshole, somehow.

"Hi," Rio said, with a feeble wave. "On these grounds...you...you see me?"

"I do," I said. "And I must say, I disapprove of your whole system of inviting people in and mind-fucking them. Kind of a shitty city, if that's how it grows."

"Oasis is not a shitty city," she pouted. "All who live here are happy. Can you say the same for anywhere else?"

"Save your breath," Dragon said with a sneer. "They are beneath us."

"Doesn't seem that way," I said. "You two, here, with all your little flunkies lined up between us. Seems like we're facing off, a little more than the cockroaches you seem to think we are."

His gaze was still icy as he looked down his nose at me, his eyes just a cold glimmer in the recesses of his hood. "You were judged, fool. You were given your place. I thought you might have use to the city, and our god agreed."

"You're not supposed to be in the inner city," Rio added. "Please go out and return to your duty."

"I say this with all possible offense intended, but fuck your duty. You can't just hijack people's brains and make them do whatever you want. Do you have any idea what I saw in there?"

Rio hesitated for a moment. "No...but can you tell us?"

"Rio," Dragon growled at her.

"I want to know!" she pouted.

"You made me fall in love with the city. You played with my emotions, manipulated me to see the greatness and potential in this place. You had me ready to sacrifice everything to preserve it."

"Which you should have done, as befits your role," Dragon said.

"Except it's all a fucking lie. Oasis isn't great at all, it's just...it's slavery. It's sick. The only good here is built on stripping away any choice people have."

"So?" Rio asked.

"...so?" I shouted back at her. "So?"

And then one more time, because I really couldn't think of any way her insipid argument even bore speaking. "So!?"

"Yes. So what if they have no choice. They are productive and happy. They have fulfilling lives, in safety. Each lives in a reality apart from each other...the world is no longer a zero-sum game -- you, who wished to be with me, could be, while I, who wished to develop my calling could as well, and both were satisfied."

"But I wasn't with you. And I'm fucking furious now to know it was all a lie, and that I was manipulated into wanting that shit in the first place."

She shrugged. "Then do not pierce the veil. I envy you, who lived within the dream."

"Your dream is shit, and this whole fucking society is shit for being built on it."

Dragon stepped forward. "That is enough. Even if you were chosen, you are also a blasphemer, and have passed your station in entering these grounds. I will accept the responsibility for consigning you to death."

"Liwei, no," Rio fretted. "You shouldn't."

"His insolence outweighs his use to the city. If our god is displeased, I will face the displeasure. Now kill that interloper and all with him."

The priests all took a step forward as one, the whole line of flesh moving towards us. I guess unlike the guards, I did exist in their reality, which was kind of a bummer. But I guess, instead of being like mindless antibodies like the guards, the priests were more...directed, and had to keep their perception to do their work. I wondered briefly what their version of reality must be like, that Dragon could command them to their deaths so easily.

I wasn't going to find out, but I was more than willing to be the death they were commanded to. My blades flashed out as they charged towards me.

AEGIS stepped forward as though addressing them, and they stopped cold. I couldn't tell what she was saying, the not-her version of herself was crying and begging for me to go back. But the real AEGIS was almost certainly talking to them and not me.

Because the stampede of muscle and meat turned back into a wall in an instant, a good twenty feet closer to us in mere seconds. And so they stood, as blank and staring as they'd been moments before.

"What? Ignore her! Kill them!" Dragon hissed. And of course they did no such thing. He glowered at us, and I flipped him the bird.

AEGIS presumably retorted, and copied my gesture towards Dragon as well.

"You are not a high priestess," he shouted, and I thought I heard genuine anger in his voice for possibly the first time. Touched a nerve there, AEGIS did. "Kill her! Attack, damn you!"

"Liwei, the proof is there," Rio said, touching his arm. "She is one of us."

"She is one of them."

"And they are of us as well. Calm yourself."

"Sorry, Rio," I said "but we aren't that either. I've got no intention of settling down in this city, or of being anyone's mind-fucked slave. We came here to do exactly one thing, and that was to stop the flow of weapons into IkaCo's hands. But since then, a couple other items have popped up on my to-do list. And Dragon's one of 'em. Get 'em, guys."

At my command, AEGIS ordered the priests to turn and attack. And through Saga, Lia and Karu both saw me and rose to strike -- Karu, soaring above the wall, rockets and lasers blazing. And Lia, emerging from the building behind Dragon, where she'd slipped in under optical camo while I distracted them all with my heretical blathering. A shiny new gun was in her hands.

Dragon, for his part, killed two of the priests in an instant with gunshots to the forehead before he had to shove Rio away from him and bounce sideways, taking a laser in his bad shoulder for his trouble. From there, he was on the defensive, as Karu harried him relentlessly, and whenever he touched down and tried to get his feet under him, the priests were as fast and tireless as he.

As for me, I bolted straight for him, wrapping myself in a sheath of lightning and channeling what felt like thirty blades in the air, hovering like a rack of javelins, just waiting to lash out and cut him open.

Even so, he somehow still got the first hit in on me. Twisting unexpectedly away from one of the priests, he shot the bastard in the head three times, and then threw the gun into my shield, where it exploded with a series of blinding flashes, my ears ringing as the remaining bullets went off inside the magazine. Under and through it all, he appeared, more than moved, and though my blades darted towards him and I got my arms up, he still stuck a knife into my wrist before skipping away, the mass of flesh and attacks chasing him.

It was Dragon fighting as I'd never seen him before. Which was saying something, considering just how much time I'd spent watching and reviewing the man fight. But always before, he'd been on the offensive, always the one to charge in, test defenses, loose a cut or bullet or two, and then bounce off, to return at his discretion. But here, he was pursued, viciously, and it was a whole new side of him which, despite everything, I had to appreciate.

Watching him go was like seeing water burst through a dam down a canal. He seemed shunted by the air itself, crashing in straight lines, often backpedaling or flipping or skipping, whatever form of motion was most necessary at the time. And then suddenly, he would crash into apparently nothing, his movement halted, facing the train of disaster in his wake only long enough to capitalize on some small advantage he'd built in their pursuit, a dagger here, a bullet there, another priest wounded or killed. And then he'd be off again, attacks missing him by fractions of an inch, or hitting him in non-vital areas as he turned from the blow.

Stolen story; please report.

It was disgusting how beautiful it was, to be honest. And while I didn't have time to gawk, more than once, as I slashed at him, my blades coming in the same time Karu unloaded a hail of scattergun fire, or cutting off his escape from a micro-missile blast, he'd consistently surprise me with how freely he moved, how practically he faced taking a hit.

It was as though he was completely aware of his body, and what each attack would take from him even before it landed. Some he simply minimized his damage taken, but others, he would trade getting cut up or shot in exchange for diminishing our forces, or for exotic munitions that Karu only kept a limited supply in hand. It was like, he was doing the math of just how hard he needed to fight in order to beat us.

It made me think of when I'd just rushed into the XPCA and had my leg shot off, pointlessly. That was a trade Dragon would never have done. Somehow, the random chaos of a fight seemed perfectly calculated, when I watched him go.

But I still hated the bastard.

There'd only been maybe twenty priests lined up at the start of it all, and we were down to single digits now. And while Dragon had taken a few hits, he didn't seem phased in the slightest. I was skipping around as fast as I could go, Karu was unloading into him full-bore, AEGIS was doing what she could at her capability, mostly setting herself up as a very dangerous deterrent, and Saga was doing her best to keep us connected and communicating.

Which just left Lia. Who'd been doing jack-all, standing there with a gun in her hands, pointed at Dragon and not much else. It was some kind of exotic weapon, that much was obvious, but what the hell did it do? Was she afraid to pull the trigger because of how close the fight was? But against Dragon she'd never get a clear shot. And we were just gradually losing without her.

"Saga," I shouted, between panting for air. "What the hell is Lia doing? She needs to shoot!"

I instantly had her senses laid atop mine, and only skipped half a step at the transition. I kept myself fighting while trying to pick up what clues I could in watching.

She was certainly pulling the trigger. That much was clear. But the gun did nothing. She was hitting it, pulling every catch and twisting every dial she could find, but nothing worked. From both perspectives, I saw Rio approaching her, more shuffling away from the fight than advancing threateningly, but Lia turned the gun on her regardless.

"Silly girl," Rio said with a smile. "Don't you know the first thing about technopaths?"

"I know they're dangerous and should all die," Lia said, pulling the trigger again and again.

Rio smiled broader. "They don't just make tech, they control it, too. It won't work without my blessing, girl."

Lia returned her smile for a moment, saccharine, and I heard a pained grunt as Karu took a bullet in the chestplate. I stepped back into my own senses more as I worked to pick up the slack to help her get her wings back under her, when I saw Lia suddenly full-bore swing and crack the butt of the gun into Rio's face.

"Seems to work fine to me…" Lia said, her voice trailing off as my senses of her faded.

Suddenly the fight turned ugly, as Dragon veered off-course straight for the two of them. AEGIS was already there, standing between them and forcing Dragon to go around, buying enough time for me to cut him off.

But it was damn clear that he wasn't happy with my sister's treatment of Rio. He looked more than furious, his normal calm face red and tense as he stared at nothing but her. When I slashed at him, he barely glanced at me, barely flinched as my blade caught his foot. Instead, he rose up on me and headbutted me full-on, both of us bleeding, stars winking in front of my eyes.

It barely made him stagger as he went past me, bearing down on her. He didn't even seem to notice when Karu caught him in the side with a piece of shrap.

If Dragon fighting before had been beautiful and calculated, this was just the ugliest fucking thing. We were hurting him more, yes, but...the rate he was closing on Lia...his blind one-dimensional focus...it scared me more than he ever had before.

Something grabbed me and I turned and found...it was AEGIS. She nodded at me, babbling about how this was all a mistake and we shouldn't be here in her not-self's words, and offered me a hand, at waist height.

I didn't get it, and the fight was closing on Lia fast. She was running now, but for how fast she moved compared to Dragon, that was another second or two, tops. Even slowed as he was by his injuries, I didn't think we could stop him.

Karu was certainly trying, hovering just above Lia, and unloading everything she had into the ground between them. AEGIS grabbed me again and again, gestured waist-high at me.

"I don't understand!" I shouted at her, turning to run back to the fight. She pulled me back and grabbed at me, at my leg, at my foot. Grabbing at...my heel?

I got it. Under my foot. I clambered up on her, the illusion seeming very wrong with how sturdy a girl I was actually climbing, and balanced myself, crouched on her poised arm. I felt her take a deep breath and settle, and then--

Both of us shoved off at once. With all the force she had, and all the force my exoframe could give me, she shot me into the air further and faster than I'd ever flown, tears instantly filling my eyes as the wind tore at me, my own blades, just white streaks temporarily left behind.

Except.

We weren't going the right way. She hadn't thrown me straight. Lia was to my right, I was flying almost directly towards the building instead.

I swore and swore and swore again, damning AEGIS and whatever fucked-up damage in her crippled body was going to get my sister killed. From up here, I had an excellent view of Dragon closing the gap on the last ten or fifteen feet, his body seeping blood now, shrugging off tasers and only bothering to dodge or resist the most brutal and debilitating of attacks, his pursuit relentless. I swore at him too, struggling, flailing in the air uselessly as I shot past in the wrong direction.

I landed with a painful crash and rolled on the white stone. But even so, I was up and crawling on hands and knees back towards them. I had mere seconds before he was on them. Lia had stopped running, she was standing firm, the barrel of the gun in her hands, raised like a baseball bat off her shoulder.

And I felt something soft and warm under my hands, looking down to see bloody fabric between my fingers.

AEGIS hadn't missed at all. We just weren't on the same page.

"Dragon!" I shouted, my voice coming out in a hoarse roar, more commanding than I thought possible. He barely acknowledged me until he glanced back.

And then he froze entirely on the spot, paralyzed by what he saw.

I was on my feet again, panting for air, bruised and broken, but still standing, the white stones under my feet smeared with my blood.

And in my hands, Rio's body, her eyes confused and scared as I held her head back by her hair, a blade at her throat, crackling ominously in the air.

For a moment, nothing happened, except for him to pivot and shoot the last priest in the lung twice.

And then, as though he were a phantom, he was behind Lia, seeming to flicker out of existence more than move. His hand glinted silver with the blade he held to her throat.

"Lia!" I shouted, taking half a step by reflex. My throat closed up, and my own blade crept involuntarily towards my hostage.

"Release her or the girl dies!" he shouted.

"Let go of my sister!" I screamed back.

"You have heard my terms."

I didn't move. I was as paralyzed as I thought he'd been a moment ago. I could hear nothing but the pounding of my own blood and my pained breaths, could see nothing but the glint of silver to match my blade of pure white.

But he hadn't been paralyzed, had he? He'd moved, even with my sword against her throat. He was willing to risk her life to even the odds. And I wasn't, I knew that. I couldn't risk Lia, for anything. She was my sister, whom I loved more than anything in the world.

And yet somehow, I was still standing, still holding Rio, her eyes watering as my fingers knotted in her hair.

Five seconds passed, and then another five, and still Dragon didn't move. Still I didn't move. Neither of us were ready to take the first step, even with so much on the line.

"I see you," Dragon hissed at Karu, who had been drifting sideways for an angle. "This girl means nothing to me."

"Saga, for God's sake, tell Karu to back off," I said.

I hardly processed it, but I didn't feel Saga there to react. I was entirely focused on Dragon and Lia. But I saw her. Out of the corner of my eye, crawling through the crack, the look on her not-her face, stupefied.

But I also saw Karu still flanking, ever-so-slowly in the air.

"Karu, stop, damn it! Saga, tell her!"

This time I noticed. Saga just...wasn't. Panic began to well inside me as I saw Dragon's knife twisting in his hands at her throat. Had we all finally turned toad? Was I forever locked out of Saga's mind, at this, the most fucking important of instants?

And Lia would die because of it?

At that thought, I realized, I needed to let go of my hostage. Maybe Dragon would honor a bargain, maybe he wouldn't. He was a twisted, fucked-up, completely alien being, who saw and did things his own dirty way, and it was completely beyond me if this exchange even meant anything to him. But the most human I'd ever seen him was his fury at seeing Rio get hurt, and if he had that humanity in him still…

Well, I had to hope it would apply to letting Lia go. I took several steadying breaths, thinking of what to say and how to end this stalemate, with Karu inching all of us closer to total destruction.

And Saga walked up to me, swaying slightly, a familiar smile on her face, half-hidden by strands of black hair.

"It's okay," she said, and it was only then that I realized I was actually seeing her. The real her. The real everything, Lia and Karu and AEGIS all, all of us suddenly looking around and blinking and bewildered as though seeing for the first time.

"Saga?" I asked. "What's...what's going on?"

I had a dark realization. That if I were a toad now, that meant my mind was completely broken. That this was a new vision, a new cage I'd been put into, where I could see everyone I knew, all fighting together against our mortal foe. That I'd be locked in here forever, because I knew I didn't have the capacity to simply not care if he killed all my friends. I'd fight him forever, whether it was a dream or not. Because the first thing he'd do in this vision would be to kill my sister and make this an eternity of hell.

But he didn't. In fact, he looked as confused as the rest of us did. It was a good look on him.

"Saga, what's going on?" I asked. "Why can't I...where are you?"

"I'm here, silly. I'm just...busy."

"Busy? With...Saga, tell Karu to stop! Wait...I can tell her on my own. Karu!"

Saga giggled demurely, her laughter like wind chimes dancing. It sounded real. It felt real. But...if I couldn't brush her mind...it wasn't really Saga, right?

"Busy with fixing all your problems, Athan. It always seems to fall to me to pick up your messes. And you are one messy, dirty boy. Not that I mind," she winked.

"...what...wha--" Rio groaned in my arms, her eyes rolling into her head. Dragon similarly slumped from behind Lia, staggering half a step, but the blade not moving an inch.

"What are you doing? This is a really bad time to be fucking around, Saga," I warned.

"Oh. I know. I'm helping, like I said." She grinned. "Lia's my friend too, you know. And I thought, I'd be damned if I let her die without at least coming in there and maybe getting stabbed myself. And I'm so glad I did."

"Because...you didn't get stabbed? I'm so lost."

"Because," she said, her grin growing enormous, "I'm speaking to their manager. I found the guy that runs the place. And he and I are having a nice chat about employee performance at this joint."

I looked down at Rio shuddering in my arms and held my breath.

The guy who runs the place? It wasn't one of these two, Saga couldn't touch their minds. But that meant--

"Their god?" I asked.

And Saga's grin grew ever broader.