"You," Dragon sneered at me. "A pestilence. One I would see end."

He advanced a threatening step, and I could see the others wavering, considering if they should hold him back. But AEGIS took her step forward to mirror him.

"Hi Dragon," she said, too cheerily. "Rio. Tobias. It's good to be back."

Tobias must have been the guy in the blue and gold and ruffles. I didn't remember him from last time, but if he was with Rio in wanting to hold Dragon back, he must have been at least sorta okay.

"Do not think you can come and go, defiling this place at your whim," Dragon barked. "This is…" he paused significantly "...hallowed ground, not to be tread by outsiders."

AEGIS gave me a peculiar glance that I thought had to do with the weirdly-placed pause, but she continued without mention. "Outsiders? Say, Athan, weren't you a warrior in their order? And wasn't I a high priestess? Highest possible rank in the Oasian hierarchy?"

"You were cut loose and set adrift from our god. You were sent off, never to return."

"And yet, here we are, returned," AEGIS shrugged. "Say, how many times has our god directly acted on your behalf, Liwei?"

That one got to him, his shoulders tensed under his cloak. "Our god is in everything I see, everything I do, everything I am."

"Can we stop antagonizing him?" I asked, and then turned to take my turn at yelling at the three of them. "Rio, hi. We're here to kinda...negotiate on behalf of the world. We really, really need you to stop warring with it. Please."

She gave me a thoughtful look. "Hi Athan. But, um, no, I'm sorry."

"Um, you declared formal war, right? Well, part of that is being open to negotiations. It's not like you're trying to wipe out everyone on Earth, right? So let's talk a minute."

The pause she gave me was extra-extra ominous, given what I'd just said. "No, I don't think so. Thanks for visiting, though."

"Surely, there can be some room for debate," the blue guy spoke.

She put her hands on her hips, almost pouting. "Tobias, I've already heard enough out of Dragon over this. This is my calling, I will not have it undermined."

"I'm not looking to undermine anything," I said. "Just to...get both of us in a better place than where we are. I want you to be happy with your calling, but I also want us happy."

Dragon moved imperceptibly. I would have missed it if I were doing anything other than keeping a hawk's eye on him. I thought for a moment he was preparing to attack, but it seemed he actually relaxed. Not that he ever really tensed before an attack, weird-ass inhuman thing he was...but now he was looking at me with a strange contemplation I'd never seen on him before.

"I already know what you're going to say," Rio called down to us. "Please stop, this war is hurting people, you don't actually know what death is, et cetera. You told me that last time."

"Well...yeah," I agreed. "And you really apparently don't. Do you have any idea the state of the world right now?"

"Miserable as ever?"

"Have you heard about Justice?"

"Oasis is sort of beyond the need for a punitive system--"

"No, there's an Exhuman flying around, who calls himself Justice. Have you heard of him?"

"Of course we have," Dragon snapped. "Do you think us idiots?"

"Well, not all of you," I admitted. "But the point is, he's absolutely destroying the world and we need you to stop also destroying the world so we can focus on him." I swallowed hard and glanced at Rio. "Uh, besides, wouldn't uh...your tests be more effective and stuff if you actually had people fighting back at their full capacity? At least wait until the Dragon situation is resolved."

"Actually, I'm trying something new," Rio shrugged. "You can get data from intact countries anytime. But to throw them into an actual warzone? That's not something that crops up every day. I have to take advantage of the situation, who knows how many other wars there would be during my lifetime."

"Warzone?" I echoed stupidly. "What war?"

"You don't mean…" AEGIS gasped.

"Well, yeah," Rio shrugged. "It's my duty as my calling."

"You can't!" AEGIS' shout was pleading. "You really...you can't be serious. I'll kill you where you stand, I will!"

"AEGIS calm down, and what?"

"She's going to attack the States, dummy. That's her warzone."

"What? Why?"

"Don't ask me, ask the psycho."

"Rio, why the fuck would you do that? That's the absolute last thing you should be doing. We need you to ease off, not...jam a knife right in the worst place imaginable."

"But imagine it," she squealed. "The world has never seen a superpower truly on its knees. This is an opportunity I can't miss researching. Not since the fall of the Roman Empire has there been an implosion on this scale. If I missed this because of some soft-hearted...words...I'd be a failure. I'd be lying to my cause."

"Please," I pleaded. "Don't do this, please. If you do, the US will crumble. The XPCA will be no more, Justice will be free to find other things and countries -- maybe even Oasis!"

"He won't come here," she scoffed. "He only goes after liars and parasites, and every soul in Oasis is as honest and hard-working as a person can be."

"You don't know that though. You don't know what the world is going to be like afterwards. There won't be any reason for Exhumans not to rise up, we're already seeing what happens when the system starts to fail in America...if you did that to the whole world…"

"Then what?" She put her hands on her hips again. "There will be chaos everywhere? There will be legions of Exhumans roving around, picking up training and confidence, becoming more interesting to fight and to study? Or the billions of lazy, indolent humans, they'll actually have to harden up to survive...and this is bad for me how?"

"It's bad for them, you selfish bitch," AEGIS sniped. "How can you stand there and talk about how little you care about ruining the lives of everyone on Earth?"

"It's easy," she shrugged. "It's not my life."

AEGIS' engines roared to life, and I saw a blue streak from behind a building as Karu also moved to engage at AEGIS' lead.

A big part of me wanted her to stop. Technically, we were doing what we had come for -- we were here negotiating with Rio about the war. The optimistic part of me wanted to press on, wanted to believe that somewhere in Rio was more than just the war-and-data-obsessed maniac I was seeing in front of me. She hadn't been this bad last time we were here, had she?

But if I were honest with myself, I also wanted her fucking dead. It felt like a betrayal that she started this campaign after we'd left, and to hear the words coming out of her now, she sounded even worse than Justice. He wanted to destroy everything because he was just an insane, omnipotent, psycho. But she knew better, she knew about the cost of human suffering and death that she was causing.

She just didn't care.

So lightning was in my hands before I'd even finished making up my mind. My legs were moving in step to keep up with AEGIS. I liked Rio, but that was before I'd gone back to work at the XPCA. Before I'd taken my return trip through Japan. Before I'd really had it sink in that some people just couldn't be fixed or reasoned with, and that their deaths would save so much more life.

Before I'd learned that killing was often the right thing to do. And from the sound of it, this was a death that the world sorely needed. My personal feelings and conscience be damned; it would be the height of selfishness to spare her just because of what I felt.

We crossed half the distance in a heartbeat. Dragon had moved, of course, taking half a step to his left to be between us. But Karu was coming in from above, AEGIS from the right, and me from the left, and he couldn't stop us all.

I saw Rio's eyes go wide as she understood what was happening, too slow. Slower than any real combatant, she took a few steps back, starting to turn, to run, and it just pissed me off that this fucking woman-child was the one directing thousands of deaths, one who couldn't even stand her ground against three attackers.

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Only a few feet away now, and Dragon tore the gun from her hands and desperately waved it over us, the emitter glowing as bright as AEGIS.

As bright as AEGIS had been. When the invisible beam hit her, she shuddered, and my heart froze in my chest. But then I understood as it hit me too, and my exoframe locked up around my legs. The scream of Karu's engine cut short, and I saw her tumbling in the air, visor flickering.

And as one, maybe a foot away from the gate where Dragon stood before the others, the three of us crashed. My momentum carried my shoulder painfully into the ground with a screaming crack. Karu tumbled athletically and seemed to absorb most of the impact.

And AEGIS just landed face-first, skidding on the ground like a corpse. I battled back tears as I held my shoulder and tried to stop the world from spinning and flickering in front of my eyes. Tried to will a sword into existence inside Rio, just five feet away, or inside Dragon, who advanced on me with the gun pulsing, his face a deadly pall.

He stopped short, his boots inches from my defunct legs. I tried to channel lightning down my body and into the exoframe's capacitors, to get enough of a surge for one kick, to get him off me, to buy a few seconds to get back on my feet, to do something.

There was a scream, and Karu flew in from nowhere, blades extended from her arms, visor thrown aside. Dragon hardly moved, dipping and weaving, keeping one arm extended yet protected to continue pouring the ennervator across me. Once, twice, he lashed out with his other hand, catching Karu first in a striking forearm, and then in the jaw, reeling her back.

"G-get," I coughed and felt the slick of blood in my mouth when I choked. "Get Rio. Let him have me."

Karu pivoted at once, but so did Dragon, fending off her blades again as she tried to lunge at the girl. One blade made it through, cutting out a trailing edge of the dirty labcoat but nothing more.

And then Karu grunted as Dragon slammed his palm into her chin and drove her to the ground. She landed nearby, flat on her back, and I saw by her eyes how dazed the blow had rendered her. She was struggling, but her feet wouldn't get under her. Not before Dragon's daggers found us. Again, he advanced, menacingly, hands glinting silver now with blades that might be our doom.

Fucking hell. Even if we'd had Saga, we never made it past the gate, never got in range of the fucking tree. Granted, we'd have another body to work with, but in a fight, Saga was about as worthless as Rio. How the fuck had this all gone so badly, so fast?

That goddamn ennervator. If only Rio had packed a different gun for meeting us. If only I hadn't been so desperate and stupid and needed this exoframe to get around in the first place. If I were on my own two feet, I could have dodged Dragon a lot more, could have tied him up and wasted enough of his time for Karu to get a shot off at Rio.

Instead, we had all this tech, rendered useless in a heartbeat. I couldn't move or use my powers, Karu couldn't see or shoot, AEGIS just...wasn't. It was pathetic.

Dragon stayed standing over me, his face contemplative, not a bit of him stirring except the pulsing of the ennervator. Was he just figuring out what kind of painful death he should give me? Were those studying eyes examining every weak-point and nervous bundle across my body, figuring out which to slice open first?

He seemingly made up his mind, turning to Karu first. I yelled, I tried to sit up, but my shoulder gave under me, and the pain of that tumbled me into moments of nonexistent blackness.

When I was in myself again, I grabbed hold of my exoframe with my good arm and pulled myself upright, the rush of blood in my head almost enough to send me under again. He was kneeling over her, doing something, the gun still at his side, still pointed at me. He was...cutting her, I thought. The knife slicing in and out, the glint of silver surreal in the grey of my vision.

I screamed at him as he worked, methodical as a butcher. At some point, Karu stirred, but he dropped her again with an elbow to her face, a sickening crack I could hear from here. I screamed and cried, tears of frustration blinding me, as I unpinned the releases on my exoframe, pulling my legs free and crawling with my one arm, the broken ground cutting long gashes in my body as I scraped myself across it, as I clawed for every inch between us.

Karu's head turned towards me, and I saw the same dazed expression on her. A confusion, a resignation, an alien-looking exhaustion.

And then Dragon pulled away, and I saw his handiwork. He'd cut off the bandolier across her chest and bound her arms and legs behind her back with it, grenades and ammo that had once been there now disappeared. And in front of my face, he threw the glinting silver that I'd thought to be a knife.

It was a syringe. Empty. One of Karu's, that she used for live captures after a target had been detained. That explained why she was so unfocused, why her head looked so heavy.

Why, finally defeated by her own biological limitations, she fell as much as her restraints would allow. Her slow breathing was the only difference between her and AEGIS' prone form next to her.

And then Dragon advanced on me. I growled at him, spitting the mouthful of blood and dust. I had no words for him. He had better keep that ennervator on me for the rest of my life, because if I ever got my powers back for even an instant…

He shook his head at me, squatting just out of my reach, just in my vision. "I do not like you," he said. "I have killed many. But few have I met who have struggled with your tenacity."

"L-let go...of the...gun...and I'll show you...how tenacious...I can be…"

He did something that approximated a laugh.

"I wish to use your tenacity, Exhuman Ashton. You spoke words that reached me. I believe this situation can be improved to both of our benefit." He seemed to swallow hard. "I face a problem I cannot overcome, though I have tried endlessly."

"Good," I spat.

"I have reached desperation. I think you may be the key to my issue. And in doing so, will benefit yourself."

"You can go fuck yourself," I told him. "You and...your desperation. I hope it destroys you."

He smiled, and the transformation was creepy as hell. Seeing something as emotionless as Dragon suddenly burst out in a grin, even if I died her today, that would now only be the second-most traumatic thing he'd done to me after this.

I heard footsteps, but couldn't get my eyes to focus on anything but him. And then I heard Rio speak.

"I-is he...dead?"

"Would it matter?" Dragon replied.

She didn't answer. I just heard a little flutter of her panicked breathing in the silence.

"He made a good point," Dragon said. "And for that reason, he lives yet. As do the others, rendered harmless, for the time."

"W-what point?"

"He came in good faith to negotiate on behalf of the other end of this war you wage. It is ill manners to execute a messenger, no matter if you wish to hear them out."

"I don't care," she said, suddenly icy. "I don't want to hear anything else from him. Or from you."

Her shoes scraped on the white stone as she turned and strode away, her footfalls sounding angry. Dragon looked back at me with a knowing glance, and despite my addled state, I suddenly understood the nature of the problem he was facing, and why he couldn't beat it on his own.

I choked on more blood as I laughed, despite myself. And this time, when Dragon grinned, it wasn't so traumatic.

There was something so humanizing about knowing that, like every other man on the planet, Dragon also had issues with women. Ice-cold killer, born and raised in this freakshow of a walled city, sees the world through some perception I can't even begin to imagine, nestled in the powers of their dead-Exhuman-god-tree, most dangerous assassin in the world, superhuman deductive, tracking, and fighting skills...and still can't get a girl to hear him out.

Shit, bro, I'd been there.

"I'll do it," I told him. "She'll listen to me."

He hesitated for a moment. "I work alone. I do not trust."

"I know."

"I am a professional. I can bury our grievances."

I paused for a moment. Those words were heavier than I thought he knew. I thought of Alyssa, and my words over her grave, more heavy words. A life I was turning my back on if I were to accept Dragon, in anything, ever.

I'd never forgive him.

But at the same time, I remembered the calculations I'd done on the flight over here, and just how many people were dying every minute. How many days left America had before Justice killed literally everyone. And how might that calculation change if Rio carried out her plans and joined the slaughter? How many more VTOLs' worth of people would come crashing down?

If I was willing to kill Rio over this, it seemed impossibly stupid that I wouldn't be willing to not kill Dragon.

"I can be a professional," I told him. "I can let it go. For now. Until the crisis is over."

"I respect your perseverance. And now I respect your honesty. Do not betray my respect, Exhuman Ashton."

"Call me Athan, please," I told him. "Not to be chummy...it's just my name."

"Very well, Athan," he said, rising, and then extending an arm.

It felt weird, felt like I was betraying myself...betraying Karu and AEGIS, who'd just been prepared to fight and die beside me. Betraying Alyssa most of all.

But it also felt light, powerful. His grip was sure and strong, and I was tottering on my feet before I even registered he'd pulled me up.

Dragon was a fucker, and I hated him. But goddamn if he wasn't strong.

And maybe it was the blood rushing from my head as I stood, or maybe it was just the new paradigm of standing there with him helping to steady me instead of putting my ass back in the dirt. But it struck me that we'd come out here to find help and end the attacks. Dragon's hadn't been the help I'd been looking for...but not that we were halfway on the same page…

That was step two. Step one was to talk to Rio and figure out what we could figure out here. I felt like if I could just get her alone...maybe do as Saga said and suck a little face...in the interest of world peace, of course…

Dragon had moved, and I was left standing there, blinking stupidly as he took my bad arm in his and pulled. Pain shot down my whole body, my chest landing on his back as he twisted, like a judo throw, I was helpless on him, my shoulder screaming as he seemingly ripped my arm off without warning.

There was a crack and a pop and then release, as he let me go and I staggered backwards, only for him to catch me before I fell. My arm hurt like fucking hell.

What I wanted to ask was what the fuck was that, but what came out was a slurry of half-pronounced profanities. It wasn't until I was gesturing at him with both arms that I realized my arm worked again, and that he'd reset my dislocated shoulder.

"Fucking warn me next time," I screamed in his face. "Or something. Who the fuck just jerks a guy like that? Fuck!"

"I did what needed to be done." He paused. "Although. I perhaps should have warned you. My apologies. I am unaccustomed to...working with others," he frowned.

I shook my head at him. This was going to be an awful, painful experience, I could already tell. Doubts were creeping up through me already at just how long this partnership would last.

But in those doubts, a glimmering hope. Competent as he was, Dragon was also a fucking idiot when it came to this kind of shit.

Which meant, he was a fucking idiot in dealing with Rio, I hoped. And as only a regular idiot, that meant I stood a chance.

Dragon waited like a glacier as I rejuiced my legs, and then did the same to get AEGIS upright. It took a false start and another aborted murder attempt before I could explain the situation to her, and by the end of it, she looked as bewildered as I felt.

But I couldn't argue with the fact that somehow, she was in my wake carrying Karu, as we followed Dragon and the other high priest through the gate unimpeded, being welcomed by Dragon to willingly enter his most sacred domain.