Superhero

"Superhero" is the ninth episode of Reflection.

*OPIA makes its first true foray into the CODA past layers of discarded battlements and abandoned defenses. The front line against the end is drawn at their feet.*

## Summary

Danger and a cluster of OPIA employees gossip about Ridill and her percieved reign of romantic terror, but are soon dispelled by Arg0s, who has come with Dr. Verona to inspect the probes that GEIST has tasked them with installing on the first layer of the Coda. Ace and Aura also tag along to inspect them, and discover that the probes are filled with various Elements and imprinted Flame, with the intention of, once implanted, injecting their contents into the puddles of raw Elements that comprise a large portion of the surface of the first layer, rearranging the shape of the nearby environment to something new. With Circuit and Cursor's help, they are able to create a backdoor into the probes that will give OPIA secret access to them once the mission ends. At the OPIA entrance, Basil meets up with Cam and the rest of the party after a conversation with Number Five where she decides that he is moderately trustworthy. Now all together, the group heads off for the entrance to the Coda.

The party, alongside Cam, Mic, and Aura, arrive at Station One in the Undercity, right on the mouth of the Coda. Before entering, Cam reads a memo from the ESP Consultant, explaining the functioning of Echo Weapons, which inject toxic Demonic Elements into a Demon, weakening the cohesiveness of their elemental composition and dealing more damage. Now all set, they head to the elevator and descend deep into the first floor of the Coda. Upon landing, they notice two already installed GEIST probes right by the elevator shaft, concluding that GEIST is actually having them *replace* damaged probes they'd installed previously. They decide to circle the perimeter of the entire floor as best as they can, placing probes in a position that creates two connected "triangles" of signals. First heading east, they skirt by a Junker Demon, a powerful Demon that is usually completely placid unless bothered. They begin moving south towards their first destination, when Cam and Arg0s notice an incredibly quick Demon shoot across from one pool of Elements to another. Deciding not to risk slowly being picked off by the almost invisible Demon, Willow and Basil spring a trap, managing to successfully scare the Demon off and even severing one of its arms, which they keep as a trophy.

Continuing on, the party arrives at their destination, where they discover a damaged probe covered in red vines that also contain a massive Demonic body in a shape reminiscient to a medieval suit of armor. Before they can attempt to figure out how to remove it, Basil suddenly hears a voice that calls to her, and begins to walk off. Ace tries and fails to convince her to come back, prompting Cam to step in, and Basil reluctantly acquiesces. Returning to the mass of vines, Aura uses his biological expertise to notice that the "head" of the vines, which are actually a Demon, is located somewhere within the vines, and the armored body is a diversion. After drowning the Demon in a barrage of Echo Weapon and Reflection fire, Mic uses her newfound stength to kill the Demon's head with Ace's assisance. The space now freed, the group replaces the old probe with one of their own, creating a small image of a lost world, which pings Burn except for Willow, who recognizes the landscape from Grasp the Earth's flashbacks.

Heading west, the party is forced to cross a puddle of Elements to get to their next destination. Looking down, they find themselves to be walking on a colossal Demon beneath the liquid, but manage to sneak by without disturbing it. They place down another probe and then take a quick break. Willow cooks the Demon arm she took into a Burn-reducing meal, and Mic attempts to tell a joke, but is rudely interrupted by Vaultwatcher. Heading forward, the party places down their third probe with little difficulty. With only one probe left, they finally head east to complete the second probe triangle. Halfway through their journey, Ace is suddenly compelled to walk towards a massive Demon, but manages to resist the compulsion through sheer force of will. The group, now wary of a strong Demon hiding in the darkness, decides to take the long way back after placing the final probe to skirt around it and return to the elevator.

The group arrives at their destination and places the final probe. Immediately, a massive area of Elements in the center of the layer turns into a mound of dirt covered in glowing fungi and a handful of gravestones. Sitting on one of the mushrooms is an extremely powerful Demon. Recognizing it, Cam tells the group to run as the Demon slowly chases after them. Foolishly, Arg0s asks him for his name, and the Demon happily complies, introducing himself as the Hunter of Mortals, Stranger of the Court of Death, information which deals a large amount of Burn. The party continues to run and finds themselves cornered at the edge of the layer, while the Hunter of Mortals hacks one of the probes, allowing it to channel a song sung by The Muse at the bottom of the Coda, which deals enough Burn to knock everyone except Arg0s and Willow unconscious. Willow uses her other Reflection to summon a building to buy time. After realizing the desperate nature of the situation, she asks Arg0s to trust her as she runs off to fight the Hunter of Mortals alone. She speaks to the Demon in a suspiciously familiar tone.

Unsure of what to do, Arg0s communes with the Muse, who possesses Mic's body to talk to him. Asking for her help against the Hunter of Mortals, she agrees to help him coax further power out of his Reflection, singing another song that knocks him unconscious as well. Deep in hallucination, Ace finds himself in a hallway, where a mysterious figure prompts him to draw power from his other selves. The Muse manifests in the hallway, remarking that Ace's Flame is full of holes and protected by an entity that frightens even her. At Ace's begruding request, she rolls a die and directs him to a past life to choose, which he does. Suddenly, Ace finds himself in a memory of a past life, where he was a renowned playwright and scientist, who has become incredibly irritated that his magnum opus, a play where one actor plays every single part, has attracted no suitable leads. Sitting besides him, a woman revealed to be named Dr. Sylph is exasperated at Ace's pretentiousness, to which Ace responds that a play designed for the end of the world needs skill reflective of that importance. She sighs, and goes off to work with the "Machinists". Suddenly, the hallucination pauses as Vaultwatcher breaches the memory and breaks Ace out of his trance, granting him Moonflare in order to tear down the hallucination from within.

In her own hallucination, Basil trudges along a desert wasteland, chasing after a great fire in the sky, created after an endless wave of Flame burst from domes on the edge of the world, scouring it utterly. Apparently, someone promised her she could find refuge at that Flame, but it seems to be eternally out of reach. Eventually, she comes across a line of past incarnations of her, who implore her to stay in line, but she angrily refuses, walking off the beaten path. Aura hallucinates as well, reliving a memory of a past version of Aura in a garden of blue plants alongside a glowing river. This Aura is hesitant, but decides he needs to re-enter the cycle to protect an unknown woman. The perspective then moves to Cam's hallucination, where he floats in an endless ocean and talks to another version of Aura, from which his memories ultimately derive. Finally, Arg0s hallucinates himself as an artificial human kept aloft in a tube, overlooking a round planet from a space station, something which Arg0s finds incredibly alien.

Awakening from his hallucination, Arg0s finds himself able to summon a veritable armory of floating shotguns, having unlocked Singlehanded Savior's secret power. Using the guns, he heals the Burn of his unconscious comrades, reviving them. Willow continues fighting against the Hunter of Mortals, both of them landing powerful hits on the other. The Hunter of Mortals knocks Willow into a wall as Ace erupts from the building, using Moonflare's space-destroying ability to trip the Hunter of Mortals into Willow's "starfall punch". Wounded, the Hunter flees the scene. Basil attempts to chase him by turning Collapse of the Living into a copy of herself, but fails.

Wary of the remaining threats of the Coda, and their mission technically a success, the party quickly returns to the elevator and leaves the Coda. Arriving back on the surface, Willow reveals that she had, in fact, died and been revived by OPIA, a fact that she reveals live on stream, as Arg0s had livestreamed the entire Coda dive. After ending stream, the party returns to OPIA to nurse their many wounds.

## Characters

### Party

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

### FLOW

* Aura Pridwyn
* Lyst Solais
* Lugh

### OPIA

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

### Demonic Courts

* Fio
* Hunter of Mortals

### Other

* Decca
* Dr. Sylph

## Trivia

* This episode was the first one in which the Burn inflicting and healing macros were used