The Subconscious

The Subconscious is the final round of The Grand Battle.

Description
It's the subconscious. Usually it's black, but the contestants can pretty much summon everything and there's a lot of symbolism and stuff.

Summary
Eximo is immediately ordered by his memory of Konka Rar to kill Aeon and so follows orders. Aeon runs away, summoning the setting of The Mutewood. He also gets threatened by Alcarith who symbolizes his guilt. Eximo encounters himself in Mutewood. There are a lot of times where Eximo tries to find loopholes to not kill Aeon. Amethyst appears also and tries to get them to team up. Eventually, the setting is changed to Konka Rar's castle so now there are two Konka Rars. Aeon continues running away from Eximo and encounters Nopor Puss as he flees to the library. Amethyst tries to deal with Nathan. Lutherion sort of chats with Konka 2 and then tries to kill Aeon after. Eventually, Eximo just flat out disobeys Konka Rar and the remaining two contestants team up to attempt to kill the Director. Amethyst turns out to actually sort of contain her actual soul and uses it to break the arena again so that Aeon and Eximo can get to the Director. The Director fights them for a bit until finally, he kills Aeon. Aeon gives Eximo his adaptive weapon.

Important NPCs
Figments: Various characters are created by the contestants' subconscious, generally representing an aspect of their personality anthropomorphized as someone from their past. Most notable is the shade of Konka Rar that represents Eximo's loyalty, but a number appear throughout the round.

Amethyst: Originally a collection of figments created by the contestants, Amethyst's duplicates begin gathering what remains of her soul and combine it to return her to a shadow of life. She once again expends her life force on a spell to weaken the Director and allow the survivors to fight him.

The Director: The battle's Grandmaster. Aeon and Eximo are finally able to confront him directly, having broken through all his barriers with Amethyst's repeated help.

Events
Warning: Significant Spoilers The contestants appear in the Subconscious, congratulated on surviving but not told the nature of the round. Eximo immediately notices Amethyst is missing and begins imagining what could have happened to her; this brings a number of Amethyst-being-killed scenarios into being, which triggers Aeon to do the same thing. To drown out all the images, Aeon imagines a brick box around Eximo, and outside it everything fades to white. He thinks of home, and his hometown appears; the brick box crumbles, and Aeon flees towards the town. While trapped in the box, Eximo concludes that however Amethyst died, it was the result of the Director, and he must be destroyed. An apparition representing Eximo's loyalty to Konka Rar appears, demanding that it fight Aeon; Eximo retorts that it does not recognize the apparition as Konka Rar, but it is still bound by its orders and it chases after Aeon. Aeon talks to a baker, who reminds him that none of this is really home and advises him to do what's right. He explores his house, and Aegis appears to incapacitate Eximo. Aeon talks with a duplicate of the woman who was following the battles, and comes to realize the nature of the round. Aeon approaches Eximo and Aegis; Eximo escapes Aegis's grasp and attacks Aeon, but doesn't make the killing blow. Konka Rar appears, insisting Eximo kill Aeon. Eximo hesitates long enough for Aeon to avoid being killed. Aeon uses his adaptive tool and his willpower to reset the setting to metallic blankness. He conjures a sword and threatens to destroy Konka Rar, who laughs and says that even if destroyed Eximo will just create him again. Aeon realizes that Konka Rar can't do anything to him directly, but can control Eximo; only Eximo can defeat his own loyalty, so Aeon takes them back through the memories of the Mutewood. Eximo encounters the imaginary Eximo; the real Eximo feels compelled to attack, as the fake could be considered a contestant, but the fake muses about whether it should count and if Eximo can disobey. They fight, and Aeon worries this may just be reinforcing Eximo's notions of loyalty. Eximo eventually defeats itself as well as a fake Dokuromets, when Konka Rar appears, demanding to know why Eximo has been wasting its time on fakes when Aeon is so close by. Aeon flees and encounters a fake Amethyst, who appears to be being influenced by Eximo's perceptions of her. Amethyst goes to investigate Eximo and binds him in place, talking to him. She reveals that because both it and Aeon believe her to be capable of analysis. Konka Rar reappears and talks to Amethyst; she reveals she represents Eximo's doubts, as well as the fact that it and Aeon are able to manipulate each other's figments if they realize it. Aeon enters the kitchen, encountering Alcarith, Emily, and Nathan; Alcarith demands to know why she shouldn't kill Aeon, and Emily and Nathan side with her. Amethyst reveals that it is Eximo's distrust of Aeon that has turned the three hostile, bolstered by Aeon's own guilt. Aeon discovers the Freefalling bomb in the Mutewood's kitchen; Eximo decides it must kill Aeon before the figments can. Aeon considers using the bomb on them, but instead phases through a wall, still in control. He briefly considers using the bomb on Eximo, but realizes that it represents his selfish drive to survive and decides he must overcome it. He tries to destroy the bomb, but his own figment shows up and tells him he can't destroy it, only leave it behind. He encounters Lutherion's image, who drags him off and kills Alcarith. He drags Aeon off to go find Eximo. They encounter Konka Rar, and Lutherion reveals that he's here to guide Aeon the same way Konka is guiding Eximo. Aeon realizes he has been trying to hard to control everything, and that he needs help to accomplish anything. He draws on Eximo's memory and changes the setting to Konka Rar's castle, then flees. Another Konka Rar appears, this one directly representing Konka Rar rather than Eximo's loyalty. They fight for a bit as Eximo leaves until the loyalty figment fades to follow it; the Konka Rar figment notices Lutherion and they begin talking. Aeon, elsewhere, tries to avoid Eximo and creates a holy sword. He encounters Nopor Puss, who sees no reason to tag along and thus does. Eximo gives chase, but is stopped by Emily, who reminds it that while she was alive, she was beginning to respect it. Nopor Puss and Aeon end up hiding in a library, pursued by Konka Rar. Amethyst encounters a demon-possessed Nathan and prepares to battle him. Lutherion attacks Aeon, destroying part of the library in the process, and Konka Rar attacks him. Emily incapacitates Eximo and begins healing it, attempting to give it a soul. The spirits that formed its amalgamated soul begin separating themselves, leaving Eximo and distorting the castle. Eximo's loyalty appears and kills Emily before she can finish her spell, then commands Eximo to kill Aeon. As Eximo's remaining spirits settle back down, the distortion dies down. Aeon tries to flee through a secret passage, but Eximo is there, holding a gun it picked up in the memory of the Mutewood. Konka Rar, still fighting Lutherion, orders it to kill Aeon; its loyalty appears and does the same. It hesitates, then fires, but Amethyst appears and blocks the bullet with a crystal. Meanwhile the figments of Aeon and Eximo fight their own battle. Amethyst talks to Eximo, and Aeon slips away; Konka Rar orders him to fight Aeon again, but as he turns to give chase, Nathan arrives. The secret passage deposits Aeon behind Konka Rar; Konka Rar burns Lutherion, then Aeon kills him with a holy sword. Eximo hears Konka Rar's dying scream, and his loyalty tells him what happened. Eximo immediately goes to find Aeon rather than fighting Nathan. Aeon runs back to Amethyst and Nathan, tailed by Eximo; Nathan attacks and binds Aeon, which gives Amethyst a chance to attack the demon successfully. Eximo's loyalty tells Eximo again to kill Aeon and shoots Amethyst. Eximo responds by shooting its loyalty, deciding that even without a purpose, it can find its own. Eximo's and Aeon's figments stop fighting and disappear. Aeon's binding wears off, and he and Eximo say they trust each other. The castle disappears, fading into a grey void, leaving only them and Amethyst's body, which stands up. She reveals how she attacked the Director, and the consequences of doing so. She says that when she attacked him, he created a dimension of the mind in which he would be more capable of defending against her attack, depositing the contestants in it as well for unknown reasons. By imagining Amethyst, they drew the remaining fragments of her soul into the Subconscious and allowed them to collect in her figment. She reveals that she forced them to overcome their faults so they could fight back against the Director while gathering up the fragments of her soul. She believes that although he is most powerful in his mental world, he is also at his most vulnerable, and asks Aeon and Eximo to conjure a purple sun; this will give her the power she needs to break through the Director's barriers again and allow them to attack him head-on. Unfortunately, she will have to expend her soul in the process, this time utterly destroying it. She disappears, fueling her own spell, and the barriers are broken. Aeon and Eximo appear in an area like the Holding Cell, but filled with displays showing scenes from other battles. Beneath them, they can see Arnold and Ari, who at first don't realize what has happened, but then find themselves trapped in the viewing room. Aeon and Eximo use the nature of the Subconscious to take themselves to the Director and confront him. He seems surprised that they managed to find a way to him, but says that he isn't unprepared. He reveals that not only does he have his own powers, but that he can manipulate the Subconscious better than either of them; he proves this by turning anything Aeon and Eximo create against them and trapping them in a steel cage. He tells them he could simply destroy them both, but he wants to have a winner. Eximo asks why a winner is so important; the Director responds that it isn't important, but it is entertaining. He summons an arena of copies of himself to view the final battle. Aeon and Eximo come to the conclusion that he's worried and not as powerful as he insists, and the cage they're in starts to crack. The three of them fight a battle of wills for a bit, the duplicate Directors booing, until the cage finally shatters. The Director attacks Aeon and traps Eximo in a spike-lined room; Aeon notices that it's taking a lot of the Director's concentration to maintain everything he's summoned, and creates the bomb on the Director's back. The audience gradually fades and Eximo bursts out of the room; Aeon takes advantage of the distraction to escape the Director's grasp and entangle him in electrified chains. Eximo attacks with a hammer, but the Director deflects the blow and destroys the chains, flying above the pair and insisting he's not as weak as they take him for. Aeon notes that the bomb is still attached to him, but the Director simply ratchets up the bomb's timer and attaches it to Eximo. Aeon comes to the conclusion that the Director is stalling as he recovers from Amethyst's attack, and the bomb is just a distraction. He causes it to vanish by taking it on himself, thereby nullifying the selfishness it represented. The Director, annoyed, attacks with a column of smoke, but Aeon deflects it; he reasons that his most powerful trait is his power over his own mind and cognition, and that now like in the Mutewood and with Nathan's demon, he is in his element. Aeon forms a mental link with the Director and tries to pry into his past, but the Director insists he has hidden everything about it. He then gives Aeon a glimpse of how he perceives the world, to demonstrate how much higher a being and more powerful he is. Aeon realizes that despite the Director's power over reality, Aeon's own power over the mind is greater, and that by using that power he can surpass the Director or even control the Grandmaster's abilities. He breaks the connection with the Director and forms one with Eximo, telling it what he's learned. They surround the Director, gathering his power to themselves and wielding it against him. They attack, but the Director deflects everything with the power he has left; however, they both realize that as they fight, the Director is steadily weakening. As they fight, Aeon and Eximo become convinced it's only a matter of time before the Director doesn't have enough power to fend them off any longer. However, Aeon makes a small mistake in his wielding of the Director's power, leaving a small opening in his defense. The Director takes advantage of it, striking him with a needle of energy, and Aeon is injured badly enough to lose his control over the Director's power; without Aeon linked to it, Eximo can no longer wield it either. The Director drains Aeon's life force from him, and Eximo experiences Aeon's memories of his life. As Aeon dies, he binds the quicksilver from his tool to Eximo, who feels it merge with its circuitry. Along with it, Eximo receives a message from Aeon, explaining quicksilver's use and about the All-Stars battle to come. The Director appears to Ari and Arnold, dismissing Ari and informing Arnold that he'll be Eximo's sponsor for All-Stars, as the Director himself will be running the battle and thus unable to. Arnold leaves, taking Eximo to his homeworld, and the Director resolves never to interact directly with his contestants again. Eximo returns to its castle, where Sorsa Rar –Konka Rar's descendant – has been forced to take over since Konka Rar's abduction for the Savage Brawl. It maintains a facade of obedience while observed, but once it's alone, it immediately begins taking in the world around the castle, and marvels in it.