Neon Sparks

"Neon Sparks" is the third episode of Reflection.

*After taking a critical moment to rest and or relax, FLOW prepares themselves to face down the demon on the other side of the illusory waterpark. Complications, naturally, begin immediately as the party has to fight for their lives against multiple overwhelming threats.*

## Summary

### Preparation

After setting up their plan to fight the massive demon on the other side of the layer of the Coda they've found themselves in, the party takes a ride on the water slide. Ace stays behind. While on the water slide, Arg0s experiences a vision of a bar, where he is approached by a Demon of the Court of Instrumentality who tells him not to expunge their influence from him, and that the entity they're about to confront belongs to none of the Demonic Courts. Arg0s gives the demon his email for further contact.

Back on the Codan beach, Ridill approaches Ace and asks why he didn't go on the water slide. The conversation eventually turns into a discussion about ESP, with Ridill hypothesizing that the sunny, safe beach they're on isn't actually part of the Coda, but rather a creation of Melli's ESP brought about by Demonic possession. After the conversation, they begin their plan. Willow uses her strength to wrap the water slide into a makeshift cage and then summons the entity from the on-fire version of the beach into Melli's ESP. Ace then kicks Basilisk into the air, who uses Reality Break on a field of Ridill's ESP to attempt to sever the bonds tying them to the Coda.

### Crisis

While Basil does deal damage, she severs no ties. The creature, which was only mildly disturbed by the attack, makes several mysterious comments implying he's met the party before. Arg0s scans the creature using Singlehanded Savior and finds that it isn't actually the entity tying the party to the Coda, and they've just angered an extremely powerful creature for no reason. Thinking quickly, Ridill uses her ESP to send Arg0s, Ace, and Basil into the on-fire beach, leaving her, Melli, and Willow to keep the other creature at bay.

The group manifests on the fiery beach, where they are almost immediately accosted by a powerful Demon now free to feast without the more powerful creature's presence. This Demon makes use of the wayward motes of Humanity to turn them into mindless thralls similar in appearance to GEIST soldiers. Basilisk uses Collapse of the Living to cut down the soldiers, while Ace engages the demon itself and Arg0s acts as healing and support. Eventually, Ridill sends Melli in to defend Ace using her Reflection, and Ace gets Vaultwatcher to lend him the legendary Immortal Blade.

The battle continues to rage, with the Demon using its machine gun harm to rain a hail of bullets on Ace and Melli, sending Melli flying into the ocean and almost killing Ace, who is only saved by the Immortal Blade's ability, which restores him from death but attaches to him a piece of its influence in the form of a White Attribute. After wounding the Demon enough, Ace incurs Reality Break on Melli's ESP world, fully wounding the Demon and allowing Ridill to sever their ties to the Coda. Before they vanish, the other entity appears, and makes another mysterious remark about Ace "doing better than the Ace Galatine usually does".

### Riots and Recuperation

The group manifests in the Midtown districts of Fuse City in the middle of a small riot let by Circuit over Ridill's firing. Circuit appears to the group with a fully physical body, which Mic has to censor on stream. Circuit calls on Satyr to take away Melli and Willow who were heavily wounded during the fight, but asks the rest of the group to walk with her. She leads them to a GEIST mall and covers it with her ESP, saying they won't be noticed during the riots. She asks Basilisk if she wants to destroy the billboards of her, which she gleefully does alongside Circuit.

Ridill drags over a small holographic poster of Basil and begins stomping on it. Basil and Circuit join her, and as they attempt to crush the poster into dust, Basil stares at Ridill so intently she begins feeling Ridill's own emotions, awakening her ESP. This realization startles her, and she runs away to a different area of Fuse City. After catching up with her, Ace and Circuit talk through with her about her feelings. They then challenge Arg0s to a race back to HQ, which he somehow wins out of pure spite. They are greeted by Dr. Verona, who leads them to the OPIA HQ garden. She discusses the group's current success and her plan to renegotiate OPIA's contract with GEIST, saying capturing their successes on stream has been a great boon. Ace also says he's willing to put his own career at FLOW on the line to ensure Ridill's rehiring, which Verona appreciates.

Aura and Lyst also arrive and hand in the Reflections they reacquired, praising the group for their work. Aura asks to be put on the front lines for the next mission to get some actual intense Demon combat experience.

### Conclusion

The group heads to a bar at the OPIA HQ, where the influence of Immortal Blade gives Ace mysterious bartending abilities. The actual bartender, Cal, arrives and begins handing out drinks. A handful of other AI show up and begin conversing with various members of the party. Basil attempts to teach Danger how to overcome his fear of being attacked, but they don't get very far. Ace asks where Cursor is, which causes her to immediately manifest and question Ace about the spacelike environmental features he saw on his first Coda dive.

After some time at the bar, the members of FLOW Wave One show up. First is Lugh, who is somewhat despondent. He talks to Ridill and Verona, who are unable to discern the cause of his discomfort, and then asks Arg0s to group with himself and Ace to do an OPIA advertisement. He then sits at the bar with Basilisk, Cal, and Cam, who are trying to explain to Basil where babies come from. Twice arrives next. After dropping off her reacquired Reflections, she goes to talk to Ace and Lyst to learn about the Formless Style. Finally, Ascalon arrives, dropping off a shocking six Reflections that she found on her own. Verona asks her to introduce herself to her new colleagues in Wave Two. She has a very brief conversation with Arg0s that consists of extremely brief sentences.

Basil's conversation eventually leads to her revealing that as the Absolute Free Will Project, she has no self preservation instinct. This conversation upsets Lugh, who moves to sit with Ace, Lyst, and Twice. Ace asks if either Lugh or Twice has met his sister, but neither of them had. Lugh continues to feel imposter syndrome compared to his colleagues, but his companions and Cal attempted to convince him otherwise. He ended up crying into his milkshake.

Ridill and Arg0s attempted to convince Aura to change Reflections. He said that he still enjoys using the Oscar Original despite its difficulties, but that he might give it to an AI partner if Cam can get a body. Cam says that he's still only going to use the First Water, and said that Cursor might be interested in the Oscar Original. This led to Ace and Aura fighting over who would get Cursor as an AI partner.

Somewhere deep in Fuse City, Satyr meets with blurred out holograms of the GEIST CEOs. They ask him for his analysis on OPIA, to which he says that they're mostly good and not worth worrying about. They question him if he's still confident he can take down OPIA from within if it comes to it, which he says he has a fifty-fifty shot at. He then manifests back in the city proper, dropping off a massive sack of Reflections underneath a bench and calling OPIA anonymously to pick it up. He then calls himself a "quintuple agent" and walks towards OPIA HQ.

## Characters

### Party

* Ace Galatine
* Basilisk Id
* Arg0s
* Willow Wisp
* Ridill Arondite

### FLOW

* Ascalon
* Twice
* Lugh
* Aura Pridwyn
* Lyst Solais

### OPIA

* Dr. Verona
* Circuit
* Cursor
* Cam
* Danger
* Mic
* Cal

### GEIST

* Satyr
* Number Five

## Trivia

* Willow's player, Tiny, was not present for this session, which is why Willow remained on the other side of the beach and was unconscious for the rest of the session
* Jay and Roma referred to the larger creature as an "endboss" and implied that it wasn't supposed to actually be summoned