Author's note: HELLO BOYS, I'M BACK! So, Searching For Lost Gems is complete (like, three days ago), and I'm back to writing this! Woot woot! In other news, RegalEagIe is writing another Plainswalking story involving, unsurprisingly, Regal (who was their OC submission to start with). Go check out Regalian Thunder in the Fairy Tail section. I've also set up a Discord server for this Plainswalking stuff. Find the link in my profile and drop by if you want to! I've set up a Pat-reon (yeah, spelt wrong, but FanFiction keeps on deleting the word if I write it properly) too! I don't have a Saturday job or anything, so I thought that setting this up would be a good way to get a little money on the side. Don't feel that you have to give, but I'll appreciate it if you do! There's a link in my profile if you want to check that out.

And onto the reviews! (These make my day, so please leave some!):

eragon95159: Alternate forms, huh? I've established in Searching For Hidden Gems that Plainswalkers can only shapeshift if the ability is one that their form has. So if you get an animagus from Harry Potter you can shapeshift into an animal. Therefore, since Amara is Tiamat… yeah, she can do that to a human form, according to D&D lore. Cade on the other hand, would have to shrink down to be able to fit in a backpack or something. But still, that'll be good for some infiltration and stuff.

chris: Pants will be crapped in when our friendly neighborhood Plainswalkers come to call!

Wizzer96: Glad you like how I portrayed your OC! Yup, the Bluepeak Riftwalkers are slowly but surely becoming world destroyers. I checked out the version you suggested, and I'll go with that for abilities.

Blaze1992: Yeah, if Amara gets hurt then Cade will pretty much go Category 6 and wreck everything.

MoosHeadFamLit: Orders have been received and will be acted on!

OechsnerC: Thanks! I hope that you guys find that my updates continue to be awesome. If they aren't, then something's going wrong.

RegalEagIe: We have talked a LOT, and everything's cool.

chris kidder: The Varden will either freak out or party for days at having three dragons on their side.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Inheritance Cycle.

Chapter 16: Sizes and Swords

The next few weeks consisted of Amara, Saphira and I tailing Brom and Eragon. Saphira and Eragon seemed to get on well with my cousin, and having her around also made me a lot happier. Amara had adapted to Alagaësia well, and so far, hadn't had any slip-ups. In fact, she was a better at acting than I was, which lead me to ask what her Charisma stat was. She just rolled all ten of her eyes and bonked me on the heads with her tail.

Having Amara with me also made my pranking tendencies re-emerge, and I dragged her into the mix. Since my cousin could create both ice and fire, we created personal rain for Brom and Eragon. It wasn't until day three that they realised that it was our fault, which we found hilarious. And then there was also what was labelled forever after as 'the hatchling incident'…

It was the fourth day after Amara had come to Alagaësia with me. The two of us were hunting together, and with Islingr's help, we were running Amara through the basics of tracking and killing. I showed off my usual method of getting lunch and encouraged her to try it out. She managed it fairly well with only a few hiccups, so we settled down in a forest clearing to eat.

"So." Amara said between bites. She still liked to talk aloud when we were alone. "You said to me in Locostral that you can change your size, right?"

I grinned, thinking back to the first time that I'd gone full size against a Bewilderbeast while helping Gem out of a tight spot. "Yup. I can grow to King Ghidorah's height on the big screen, so about 160 meters tall as a maximum. I'm not sure what my minimum is."

"Can I see?!" My cousin asked excitedly.

"I'll give it a go." I shrugged. "I went big last time, so let's see how small I can go."

Standing up, I closed my eyes and drew in power from the Rift while visualising myself as small as possible. I'd had a bit of practice at this, but I hadn't utilised the ability much since I discovered it. Still, I felt the semi-familiar burst of power, and I felt myself getting smaller.

I opened my eyes again when I heard Amara's excited squeal of "You look adorable!"

The first thing I saw was my cousin's five faces blotting out the rest of the world, which made me hurriedly back up with a surprised "Woah!"

"Sorry, sorry!" Amara said, quickly letting me have more room. "It's just… wow!"

"What?" I asked. "You're acting like I look different, and not just from the change in size."

"Well… It might be better if you see for yourself."

So saying, my cousin created an ice crystal big enough so I could see my reflection. What I saw was startling to say the least. I was about the size that I guessed Saphira would be when she first emerged from her egg. However, instead of simply being a smaller copy of my regular self, I actually looked like a hatchling. My eyes were much larger in comparison to my heads than they used to be, my claws and talons were shorter, and my spikes had become much more rounded, less sharp.

"Cuz," Amara said, "you could win literally every cuteness competition you could enter."

Admiring my own reflection, I decided to bring out the heavy artillery, and unleashed the puppy eyes with a soft whine. Amara almost died from adorableness overload, so I quickly cut the sound off.

Grinning, I turned to her and asked "Wanna try a prank?"

Amara smirked. "Hell yes!"

"Can you give me a lift?"

"Sure. What's the plan?"

"I'll explain on the way."

Credit to my cousin, she was a good actress. When she landed next to our companions, she was in a state, barely able to gibber out the mental words of "Something happened to Ghidorah!"

"What!?" Saphira, Eragon and Brom all shouted at once. I think they meant it more as an expression of surprise than an actual question, but it was hard to tell.

"He's… he's okay, but… well, you should probably see for yourselves."

So saying, Amara raised one of her heads to her back and gently picked me up. After a brief ride, my cousin deposited me on the grassy floor of the clearing that we were in, and I squeaked indignantly as she stepped back a little, leaving me on the cold forest floor.

"No way." Eragon said, too stunned to move.

He, Saphira and Brom all wore the same expression of dumbfounded shock.

"I… I don't know what to do…" Amara said sadly. "Four days after I meet up with my cousin, and he's a hatchling again…"

I just squeaked happily and licked one of my snouts, seemingly oblivious.

"How did this happen?" Brom questioned.

"I don't know." My cousin replied, hanging her heads. "One minute we were eating together, and the next there was this bright light. When it was gone, Ghidorah was like this."

There was a brief pause before Eragon asked "Could this be the result of some type of magic?"

Brom shook his head. "Nothing that I know of can make someone younger, especially not a dragon."

I started letting out cries of ever-increasing volume, trying to get across the message of 'pay attention to me!'

Apparently, responding to crying hatchlings was built into dragons, as both Saphira and Amara surged forward to look after me. There was an awkward moment as they both collided in their rush to get to me, which made me chuckle internally, but they pulled themselves apart fairly quickly.

"Do either of you actually know how to take care of hatchlings?" Brom asked, which made them look away sheepishly.

"Err, not really." Amara conceded.

The former rider rolled his eyes and strode forward to pick me up. "Quiet now, Little One. Let's get you something to eat."

As he gently put an arm under me and lifted me to his chest, I discretely shot Amara a shocked expression. Brom was actually capable of being gentle? She just stared back, as surprised as I was.

I quickly found that I didn't like being carried, so I decided to solve the issue… by growling and biting Brom on the nose. To his credit, he didn't scream, but he did shout- more in surprise than pain- and dropped me, allowing me to scamper off towards the treeline. Eragon quickly ran after me with Saphira in hot pursuit. Amara looked like she wanted to follow me too, but was way too big to fit between the trees. Heck, even Saphira was pushing it, leaving behind broken branches and scarred bark.

Therefore, it was no surprise that Eragon was the only one who managed to keep on my tails. I led him on a merry chase through the woods, over fallen logs, across a small stream, and halfway up a tree, laughing to myself the entire time. The young rider had to stop at the base of the tree, panting slightly from the effort of running. He looked up at me and gave me the stink-eye, so I stuck my tongues out at him and climbed higher, using my claws to hook into the bark and pull myself up.

Eragon groaned and began climbing after me. He was pretty good at it too, gaining height faster than I was, even with one of his hands in a splint. When I was a quarter of the way from the top, I felt his hand on one of my tails, and I turned my three heads back to face him.

"You catchted me!" I squeaked happily, deciding to dumb down my speech to the level of a toddler. "Now my turn! I catch you!"

Eragon's face shifted from a smile to a fox-like grin. He knew that this was his opportunity to get me back to the clearing, as did I.

"Can I get down first?" He asked me. "My hand is hurt and I don't want to accidentally fall."

"Kay." I accepted, manoeuvring myself to one of the branches so I could take off as Eragon started descending.

As soon as his feet hit the forest floor, I launched myself out of the tree, diving at the young Rider, who started running the way that we had come. I managed to sustain a pretty long glide on my tiny wings, but I started running as soon as I hit the ground. Eragon did a very good job at keeping enough distance between us so that he wouldn't get caught, but wouldn't allow me to trail so far behind that I lost track of where he was.

When I finally got within five meters of Eragon, I leapt to tackle him, but I was surprised to find myself snatched out of the air. A strong but gentle set of jaws closed on the scruff of my centre neck, and I turned my other two heads to see that it was Saphira who had grabbed me.

"Hey!" I said as I swung in the air. "Don't like! Wanna play! Need to catch!"

"No." Saphira said primly. "You have run away from us once already today. You will not do so a second time unless one of us are with you."

"Pwease?" I asked, turning the puppy eyes up to eleven and adding the whine.

Saphira must have been made of ****ing titanium, because she didn't break at all. Instead, it was Eragon- who'd stopped running after Saphira intervened- who did the obligatory "aww". Still, I was carried back into camp in my fellow dragoness's jaws, and I was sufficiently embarrassed when Brom and Amara saw me. Brom just grinned, but my cousin had no mercy, unleashing a draconic belly laugh, and was quickly reduced to helplessly rolling around on the floor.

As my captor deposited me onto the grassy ground, then gently put a paw on me to stop me from running off again, I decided that enough was enough. Growing back to my regular size, which made the Alagaësians quickly get out of the way, I poked Eragon with a claw and grinned.

"And that classes you as 'catchted'."

"You were… you were fully aware of what you were doing, weren't you?" Eragon said, shocked.

"Yup." I smirked. "I found out that I could do this a couple of weeks ago, and I've been practicing while you guys aren't around."

There was a long pause before Brom yelled "You bit my nose, you *******!"

"And that would be my cue to leave for a bit!" I laughed, taking off as Amara collapsed into more laughter.

I stayed away for a couple of days, leaving Brom's anger to cool off for a bit. Amara and Saphira both managed to find me in that time, and I took great pleasure in showing Saphira what it was like to be on the receiving end of being held by the scruff of your neck. That ****ed her off for a while too, but she soon got over it.

At the end of the period where I judged that I'd be yelled at, I finally returned to Brom and Eragon, just before one of their evening duels. I landed at the very edge of the camp with a soft thump and slowly made my way into the firelight and laid down between my fellow dragons.

"Sup." I said.

"Hey cuz." Amara replied, headlocking my left skull and giving it a noogie. I promptly responded by flaring electricity around my head, giving my cousin a small shock, which made her release me.

Saphira merely nodded politely at me before turning back to the duel. Both master and student were really going for it, each of them desperately executing stabs, parries, and slashes. Eragon had become much better at swordplay since he started, and he was using his non-dominant hand to boot, but he still couldn't beat Brom. Zar'roc span off into the bushes, and Eragon sagged, panting hard.

Glancing at both of my scaly companions, then where Zar'roc had spun off to, I rose, stood vertically, then shrank down to the approximate size of a human. My shoulder came up to a little above Eragon's, but my necks had to bend down to allow me to see, which made me seem much taller than the average person.

As I walked into the bushes, Amara and Saphira seemed to catch on to what I was doing.

Saphira was about to protest, but Amara said "Let him have a go. You never know, he may be fairly good at it, and at least it will help him keep out of trouble for a few minutes."

"Oh, ye of little faith." I grumbled as I found the blood-red sword, then stepped back into the light.

"How long do you think he will last against the Old One?" Saphira asked my cousin.

Amara sucked in air between her teeth. "Ooh, hard to say. Five minutes, tops. What do you think?"

"Above three minutes, but below seven."

"Wanna make a bet?"

"As people say where you come from, 'sure'."

"So what would the winner get?"

"Do you accept jelly beans?"

Amara chuckled as I stopped before Brom and raised Zar'roc. "May I have a go?"

The former Rider laughed, but allowed me to advance as Eragon staggered towards Saphira.

"Any pointers?" I asked.

Brom shook his head. "If you're learning with me, then you learn the hard way."

He charged quickly, taking me off guard. I barely managed to raise the ruby sword in time to block his blade, but metal struck against metal with a resounding clang. I responded with a very wobbly stab, my wings getting in the way. Brom easily batted my strike aside, then whipped his blade around mine and towards my chest. I jumped back from the strike, but tripped over my own tails and fell backwards, dropping Zar'roc.

Brom advanced until he stood over me. Then he thrusted, but I kicked him in the stomach with both feet, knocking the wind out of him. That gave me enough time to roll over, pick up Zar'roc and get ready for the next assault.

"Bit of a cheap shot." Brom grunted as he got his breath back.

"I thought we were learning the hard way." I replied with mock innocence.

The former Rider scowled, then came at me again with two large, sweeping swings, which I avoided by ducking underneath the first one and parrying the second. Given that my skill with swords was pretty much zero apart from playing with plastic lightsabers, I thought that I was doing pretty well until Brom stabbed a hole in one of my wings.

I howled in pain and dropped Zar'roc before I grabbed his sword with my injured arm, wrenched it out of his grip, and punched him in the face with my good arm. Brom staggered backwards as I got both swords in my hands. Lunging forward, I knocked Brom to the floor and crossed both blades over his throat in a X.

"Remarkably well done." Brom commented as I stepped back, dropped his sword on him, and examined my partially healed wing.

I was surprised that it had been cut, especially with the magical barrier covering both blades, but I guess that Brom had just put a lot of force behind the strike.

"Let's do it again." I demanded. "I beat you because I used my body to my advantage, not because I'm good with a sword."

"A good assessment." The former Rider agreed before stabbing at me.

The next few matches we did, Brom definitely won. However, we quickly found that I was better at defence than offence. I could anticipate where Brom's strikes would come from, and I had a good enough reaction time to either get out of the way or block his attack with my superior strength.

On the other hand, I was absolutely crap at attacking. My swings were unbalanced, my thrusts went wide, and I couldn't get a feint right for the life of me. The only moves that I could successfully pull off was a dual tail strike, forcing Brom to block both of my limbs while I snuck Zar'roc up to his throat, and using my claws to bat Brom's weapon aside before lunging.

Our session ended when the former Rider disarmed me in the same way he had done with Eragon, sending Zar'roc flying into the bushes. As he brought his sword backwards and thrusted at my chest, something sparked inside my heads and everything seemed to blur. The next thing I knew, I had caught Brom's blade between my palms, stopping it an inch from my chest.

After a few seconds, I released the blade, sagged a little, and took a few steps backwards. Brom was panting heavily as he removed the magic guard from his sword, wiped my blood off it with a cloth, and sheathed it. Eragon got up to retrieve his blade, and I was left to ponder how the **** I'd done something so awesome as I returned to my usual size and dropped to all fours with a loud thud.

"Not bad for your first time, cuz." Amara congratulated me.

I shook my heads despondently. "I'm ****. I can do blocks and stuff, but I suck at strikes."

"As long as you can hold an opponent off for long enough," Saphira encouraged, "you can strike them back when they tire."

"That makes sense." I shrugged.

"To be honest, who cares?" Amara pointed out. "Dude, you're a three-headed dragon. Who the ****'s gonna challenge you to a swordfight? Just zap 'em and call it a day."

I chuckled at that, then said goodnight and curled up to get some sleep.

Snapshot #1B

"How did this even happen!?" Amara shouted from one head while firing ice with another.

"I don't know!" I yelled back, trying my best to beat out the fire with my wings, which just made it bigger. "All I know is that it's not my fault! I don't do fire!"

"Well it wasn't me!" Darius shouted.

"Liar!" Amara said. "You're literally the fire dude, and I haven't used my flame at all today!"

One of my heads spotted several figures hurrying down towards the Quidditch pitch. "Bail, bail! We've got incoming! Bug out now!"

"****!" my fellow Plainswalkers yelled.

Together, the three of us leaped over one of the pitch's grandstands and ran for it into the Forbidden Forest. The stadium behind us snapped, crackled and popped in a massive inferno, a half-melted Quaffle lying in the middle of it.