Author's notes: So, Chapter X seems to have been well received in general! That's great, as both I and Regal put a lot of effort into it. Anyway, now onto the reactions of Saphira, Eragon, and Brom to Cade's new predicament. This is kinda filler, but we'll get to Dras Leona next time! Enjoy!

With thanks to my Patrons:
Regal Eagle

In response to reviews:

Wizzer96: Yep, we have Kevin! I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter. Yes, the pre-built instincts will be a recurring problem for our Plainswalkers. Amara will start to suffer from Tiamat's desire to conquer, but Cade will help her out. As for Darius, yes. He'll be a pyromaniac. And welcome to the Discord server!

Blaze1992: Err… to which part?

JustAnotherWildDragon: Thanks, and welcome to the Discord server!

dragonlord174: Yup, and thank you! I was a bit worried about making Cade have three conciousnesses, but it seems to have turned out well.

d8rkforcen1igh7: Thank you! It was Regal's idea for the right head to be called Sparta. I just put that line in there for the meme. As for not predicting stuff, neither could I. We just made it up as we went.

chris: Thanks! As for Cade becoming Monster X… Hmm. I'll get back to you on that one.

The Jagdpanther: I did explain in a response to a review for chapter 12 that Cade is a hybridisation between an Alanglaesian dragon and King Ghidorah. Well, was. After last chapter, he's mutated/evolved to get a lot more of his abilities. Now he doesn't need oxygen, and he CAN go to space, as well as doing a lot more sick stuff.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Inheritance Cycle.


Chapter 19: Facing the Music

So you probably want to know what happened after we typed that. Truth be told, Driscol chickened out and left the group chat, too scared to see what the reply would be. Naturally, we were furious at what he had done, but we eventually agreed that it would be in our best interests to check what would happen… later.

For now, we were having a late breakfast, and Driscol was recovering from a restless night. Kevin was interested about what we'd found, but Sparta was royally ticked off that Driscol did what he did. Our right head wasn't talking to our centre one, making us even more divided than our new usual. That utterly sucked. Added to that, none of us could agree on what to have for breakfast, which drove us to new levels of self-loathing, and a mental shouting match that only ended when Gem slapped us in the faces with her tail and told us to shut up.

Eating breakfast itself was awful too. Before our split, we'd just eat something from one head. Now, we each had a different idea of what we wanted, how we wanted it, and not enough stomach space to cope with all of us shovelling down food at the same time. It was about an hour and two pukes later when we finally remastered eating. That just made us even more grumpy, and Sparta's already short patience was stretched as tight as possible, and he really wanted to blow something up.

Therefore, it was no surprise that when the lift went ding and made us jump, a 'stray' gravity beam blasted through the microwave. The device exploded with a bang, and was blasted across the room. All three of us perked up at that, the hostility between us dropping a little. Our beams had never had that much knockback before what our fellow Plainswalkers were calling the Clash of the Titans.

Gem sighed, and glared at us before walking over to the lift as Sparta started zapping small things around the table with very toned-down gravity beams and seeing if he could lift them. Driscol was on his third bucket of coffee, and still had bleary eyes. Kevin was watching Sparta and gave him an affectionate rub every now and then, trying to be the glue to put us back together.

That was a goal we all wanted. To be an 'I' again. Yes, one day of being a 'we', and we'd already decided we didn't like it. It was too chaotic, too divided. Sure, we were coping, but that was it. Coping. And we hadn't even got back to our assigned realm yet.

Simultaneously, we all groaned and looked up at the ceiling in anxiety. We liked the rare moments of harmony that we had. They bonded us together, united us, made us stronger. They made us more like how we used to be. Singular.

"Hey, Driscol, Kevin, Sparta!" Gem called us. "You guys have a delivery!"

"What?" We asked in surprise.

Turning, we saw four large boxes that were neatly stacked in the cargo lift. On one of them, a small note read;

'Thought you might want to keep these. If you do, get a cryogenic freezer. –Ragnar.'

"Huh." Sparta said. "That doesn't give us much of a clue. What do you think they are?"

"I have an idea." Kevin said. "But I don't want to say unless I'm right."

Driscol just tried to finish his coffee in peace as we pried the lid off the first crate.

The smell hit us before anything else did. "Oh God, that's absolutely rank!" Driscol said, snorting coffee out of his nose in disgust.

"Oh God, I was right." Kevin said as the lid came fully off and clattered to the floor.

Inside was one our severed heads.

We were filled with various thoughts and opinions on the matter. Disgust, fear, horror, and strangely, happiness and laughter. Driscol and Kevin looked at the chuckling Sparta in shock, trying to judge if we were slipping from our regular levels of insanity.

"I like his sense of humor!" Sparta laughed. "I want to keep it. Or them, if there's more in those other boxes. They served us well in their brief time on us."

"You're ****ing mental." Driscol decided.

"I'm half disgusted, and half in agreement." Kevin said.

"So, keep?" Sparta asked.

Kevin looked at Driscol, who sighed, rolled his eyes, and nodded reluctantly. "If that's what makes you happy."

Sparta grinned. The simple action made Kevin happy that we were getting along, which made Driscol happy in turn. Our right head started talking to Gem about getting some kind of freezer, as the other two of us looked down at our severed limb. Kevin smirked, grabbed hold of it, and stuck it between him and Driscol, making the centre head try to get on Sparta's other side- out of the area where it could be smelled.

Kevin laughed and stuck the dead head back in its box, closing the lid over it as Driscol tried not to gag. "We could play some good pranks with these."

Sparta spun around to face our left head, snarling. "And disrespect their memory? No. We're gonna keep them as a tribute to them, and a reminder of our failures."

"I better not be able to smell them though." Driscol said sternly.

"Cryo-tubes and the like have an airtight seal." Gem explained. "Nothing gets in or out, but if you get ones with a window in them, you can look inside them."

"That sounds great!" We said happily.

Gem smiled. "Tell you what, I'll sort that out while you three go back to your realm."

Our faces fell, and our heads drooped towards the floor. "But… but we aren't ready…"

"Hey." Gem said gently, putting her hand under Driscol's chin and tipping him up to meet her gaze. "I get that you're scared of your friends being scared or weirded out by you. I would be too in your situation. But if you don't even try to be accepted, then you'll never know what their reaction will be. You could be stressing that they might hate you for the rest of your life when they could be very understanding about your situation. All of us here have accepted what happened to you. Sure, we think it's strange, but we're here to support you. Your friends in Alagaësia will be too once they understand. You've just to take the leap and tell them what happened."

"Are you sure?" We asked.

"Yes I am." Gem said confidently, giving us a brief hug before gently pushing us towards the window. "Now go, and good luck."

We nodded, took a deep breath, and opened the window before launching ourselves out of it and spreading our wings.

"Was it just me," Sparta asked, "or did she act a lot like Mom?"

"So you noticed that too?" Driscol asked.

"Well, it's not surprising." Kevin pointed out. "You remember that Jacob said that Gem was like a big sister to him while we were in How To Train Your Dragon?"

"Yeah…" Sparta said.

"Well, I think she's kinda like that to us."

We mulled that over as we altered course for the departure portal. That made sense. It would be natural for some of our Clanmates to pass the boundary from friends to family. Gem had definitely passed it, Amara was our cousin anyway, and Jacob was definitely like a brother to us, given our time together while searching for Gem, but we didn't quite think that anyone else in the Clan was that close to us.

As we dove towards the orange pool of the Rift, our thoughts turned to our friends in Alagaësia. Did we think of any of them as family? Not really. Brom was a teacher, albeit a grumpy one. Islingr was our master, and although she cut us a lot more slack now she knew what we truly were, she was still across the void of teacher and student. She was friendly, and we could rely on her, but it was more of a professional relationship than a relaxed one.

Eragon was… complicated. Though he had a tendency to act before he thought, he was a good person, and we had occasionally shared jokes and pranks. So he was still a friend. As for Saphira, we'd spent a lot more time with her than anyone else in Alagaësia except Islingr, although it felt like we knew her the best due to our long talks together. However, even though we knew her life story via the books, which was weird, we still had very little idea about her personality- what she liked and disliked. That put her in the friends box.

Thoughts satisfied, we burst through the Rift, back out to where we had left Alagaësia. The results of our venting could still be seen, but it was nothing compared to what we had done in Locostral. A few demolished trees was nothing compared to a sizeable section of a city. Still, it was yet another reminder of how destructive we could get.

Sighing, we projected "Cuz? Where are you guys?"

Amara's answer came back almost instantly. "I'm in the woods outside Dras Leona with everyone. I convinced them to wait until you got back before going in."

"Can we get there without anyone seeing us?"

"I think so. Just come in as a fairly small version of yourself. Try Jacob's size as you approach."

"Understood." Kevin said as we cut the connection.

We were about to take off before Sparta said "Uhh, which way is it to Dras Leona?"

"Um…" Driscol pondered.

"Why don't we just go as high as we can and look around for Helgrind?" Kevin suggested.

"That'll work." Driscol said, and we took off with great beats of our wings, stirring up a small storm of leaves, twigs and dust as we rose through the sky.

We quickly ascended through the clouds, the wind whipping in our faces. This felt right. We were the kings of the sky, and we were born- well, reborn to be here. Eventually, we levelled out and started looking around for Helgrind.

When we finally caught sight of it, we were a little stunned. It was massive, jagged, and looked extremely out of place. There was nothing else like it in the surrounding landscape, and that alone gave a very out-of-this-world vibe. And none of us liked that. Still, we set course for it, and started winging our way towards Dras Leona.


As it turned out, we didn't need to be worried about being spotted. Night fell by the time we managed to find everyone, and we used the darkness to our advantage. It both hid us, and it's absence in the form of a campfire showed where Amara, Brom, Eragon and Saphira were.

We didn't bother to announce ourselves with a fancy entrance. We landed without ceremony and took in the scene. Eragon and Brom were duelling, Amara was watching a movie, and Saphira was dividing her attention between the fight and the film. Still, they all looked our way as we landed with a loud thud, and we were greeted with a combination of smiles and polite nods.

We didn't return them. We were staring at the ground, a sinking feeling starting in our stomachs as our heart rates elevated. This wasn't going to go well. This was going to be a nightmare! This…

"Ghidorah, are you alright?" Eragon asked us as he lowered his sword.

We shifted our weight around nervously, not meeting his eyes as we shook our heads.

"What happened?" Brom snapped.

Kevin shied away as Driscol tried to speak, but mentally choked up. Sparta rolled his eyes and took the lead.

"We split. Happy?"

"What?" Eragon asked.

Sparta groaned and tried again. "Our consciousness. It split-"

"Triplicated." Driscol cut in.

"-over… Did I ask?"

"Well, no. But it's more accurate. We didn't divide. We copied."

"But I'm the one who's explaining."

"Sorry."

"You'd better be. Now shut up."

"Err, guys?" Kevin said.

Our infighting heads turned around to see what was going on, and found Eragon, Brom and Saphira with their mouths wide open.

"Um, surprise?" Kevin said hesitantly as we nervously backed up.

"What…" Brom said blankly.

"I think you broke them." Amara chuckled, giving Brom and Eragon a nudge that almost knocked them over.

"How did you manage to…" Eragon trailed off.

We winced. This was going about as badly as we'd feared.

"We got into a fight with someone." Driscol said.

"And won!" Sparta added happily.

"And we think that this happened somewhere when our instincts were taking over." Kevin added.

Then we all spoke in sync. "So we're like this now. And we don't like it, but we have to live with it."

Saphira was still staring at us. "Are you… three… still the same person? On the inside?"

Sparta took the answer for us. "Kind of. We do have moments of unity, but as Driscol said a while back, we sort of represent the top three opinions we have on something. He's the guy in the middle, by the way. Kevin's on the left, and I'm Sparta. Although if you want to refer to us collectively, we will respond to Ghidorah."

Eragon ran a hand through his hair. "So you're three people, in one body."

"Yeah." Driscol nodded. "We were pretty shocked when we first realised we had two other consciousnesses inside us, so compared to that, you're handling this very well. But what you should take from this is that nothing long-term has changed. Sure, there may be three of us in here, but that doesn't matter. We're still ready to do our job and protect you and Saphira."

Brom seemed to get over his shock, and his face returned to its usual scowl. "Good. We've almost reached Dras Leona now. We would have gone in already, but your cousin insisted that we should wait for you, so we're going to wait the night here and enter the city- and I use that term loosely- in the morning."

"Good." We said. "That means we can go with you."

"What?" Saphira asked as if she'd misheard.

"It's our responsibility to take care of you and your partner." Sparta explained to her. "You'll be fine out here, but we can shrink down and fit into a backpack, so we can keep watch over Eragon. You know he's a trouble magnet, and with the Ra'zac being somewhere in Dras Leona, we can't be too careful."

"That's true." Brom grumbled. "But you're to stay hidden, alright?"

"Roger, roger." Kevin chuckled, impersonating a battle droid.

Amara chuckled, and Brom rolled his eyes and walked over to talk with her about something, leaving Eragon and Saphira with me.

"I expect that you're freaked out by this." Driscol sighed, his head drooping slightly. "You probably think we're an abomination or something."

Eragon and Saphira glanced at each other, and then turned towards us.

"Well, it's going to take some getting used to…" Eragon started.

"But you are still the same person that we started this quest with, even if you have become three people from one person." Saphira finished.

We grinned broadly, and enveloped the duo in a hug. It felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off our shoulders. They'd accepted us.

"Thank you." we whispered. "You don't know how worried we were that you'd reject us."

"No... problem…" Eragon squeaked. "But… air!"

"Jeez, sorry!" Kevin said as we released our 'captives'.

Saphira chuckled. "It's good to have you back after your time away."

"It's good to be back." we toothily smiled at her before lumbering over to see what Amara was watching.