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In response to reviews:

SappySoulTaker:
Sorry I didn't get round to you last time. I usually check the reviews the night before I upload a new chapter, so I just missed you. As for your comment, it might be a bit far to say that there's no possible in-universe explanation for Cauroc's robot body, but seriously. It's a robotic body that seems to draw power from the Eldunarí inside it, has a neural interface with said Eldunarí which relays commands and sensory inputs back and forth, and to top it all off, has impeccable balancing skills. We are nowhere near this level of robotics in the present, so in a medieval stage of technology, it would be impossible to create something so advanced. The only possible in-universe thing I can think of to explain it is aliens. Yeah. Aliens.

Idhun's Durmgrist Feldunost:

Yes he can! The top of Farthen Dûr is large enough for him to fit through, but I don't know if he can make it perpetual night. I'd have to know the dimensions of the hole to make a good estimate, although if you use Earth's volcanoes, then I'd say he should be able to. However, Farthen Dûr is absolutely gigantic, so I don't know, even though Cade does have a very impressive wingspan (I'm guessing around 350 metres from wingtip to wingtip at full size).
Blaze1992:
Okay. I know that not everyone will like everything that I do, but thank you for your feedback.

chris:

Thanks! I will try to ensure that the story remains great. Will Cade ever go taller than 160 metres? No, he's maxed out.

that guy:

The link does work, you just have to remove the spaces. I had to put them in like that as Fanfiction is a pain in the ass if you want to link something in.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Inheritance Cycle. If I did, I probably would have ruined he books and messed them up.


Chapter 20: Operation Liberation.

Dras Leona. A synonym for hell on Earth. Well, hell on Alagaësia. This utter pit of a city was misery crushed underneath despair.

Eragon, Brom and we were inside this… putrid bog, looking for the Ra'zac while Amara stayed outside with Saphira. Honestly, we thought that they had the better end of the deal. Dras Leona was rank. Even though we were hidden inside Eragon's backpack and couldn't see the horrors of the city, we could still hear and smell them.

Illness, poverty, raw sewage in the streets, misery, starvation, we sensed all of it. The two humans- it still felt weird to exclude myself from our former species- eventually found the Golden Globe and got the five of us a room for the night.

As Eragon looked at the bed, his already troubled face pulled itself into a grimace. "I'm sleeping on the floor. There are probably enough bugs in that thing to eat me alive."

"Agreed." We decided, climbing out of Eragon's backpack.

Brom shrugged. "Well, I wouldn't want to deprive them of a meal."

Sparta groaned quietly as we stretched, cracking noises coming from several of the bones in our back. "For God's sake, could you have made the ride any bumpier?"

"Sorry." The young rider apologised as we spread our wings out to lose some of the stiffness from them. "So what now?"

"We find food and beer." Brom announced. "After that, sleep. Tomorrow we can start looking for the Ra'zac."

Eragon nodded as Brom started securing his possessions.

"Ever got drunk before?" Driscol asked him.

"No. I couldn't afford to." Eragon replied.

"Then let us pass on our wisdom and tell you, if you care about how you feel in the morning, don't drink too much."

"Why?"

"Because while the alcohol affects you, you'll have very little control over yourself." Sparta said seriously. "You'll lose your sense of balance and your ability to tell good ideas from bad ones. The next morning, it will feel like you've got your head jammed up against our boom box when the volume is on max and it's blaring rock. You'll also feel like your stomach is trying to kill the rest of you. Trust us. We've been through it. It's one of the worst things you can possibly experience."

"Oh."

"Just… know your limit, okay?" Kevin added as the two humans left the room. "And bring us back something to eat!"


The next day dawned with us mentally belting out a song into our companion's brains.

"SHE WAS A FAST MACHINE, SHE KEPT HER MOTOR CLEAN, SHE WAS THE BEST DAMN WOMAN WE HAD EVER SEEN!"

Eragon sat bolt upright, instantly alert. He'd heeded our advice and hadn't drank too much.

"SHE HAD THE SIGHTLESS EYES, TELLING US NO LIES, KNOCKING US OUT WITH THOSE AMERICAN THIGHS!"

Brom cursed heavily and lobbed a pillow in our general direction. Catching it in mid-air, we threw it back at him, hitting him full in the face. We kept on singing as he stumbled upright and staggered out of the room, slamming into the doorframe on his way out.

We stopped as soon as he disappeared, chuckling to ourselves while Eragon smiled at us. "You really shouldn't do that."

"But we did!" Sparta laughed. "Just goes to show you why getting drunk is a bad idea, especially the next day."

The young rider smiled. "Yeah. Thanks for the tip."

"No problemo." Driscol smiled as Eragon followed Brom towards breakfast.


The rest of that day was only filled with being bumped around in the backpack while scanning the unshielded minds of the area. It was a trick that Islingr- who didn't seem too phased about what had happened to us- was trying to teach us, so we'd always be able to tell who meant us harm. So far, we'd mastered the part where we had to read intentions, but we were having trouble on broadening our focus.

Part of that was due to us detecting ourselves, which was basically poking yourself, but mentally. It was a problem that we kept facing, and after half an hour, it became so annoying that we had a tiny fight between all three of our heads, and decided to give it a break. Islingr gave the matter some thought and told us to only set one of us on detection duty. Kevin took up the responsibility as Sparta and Driscol made a tiny hole in the pack so we could see out, and got into a fight about who would look through it.

At about lunchtime, Eragon and Brom split up, with Eragon taking us around. He also managed to slip us a lump of meat without anyone noticing, which gave allowed Sparta to eat while Driscol watched and Kevin thought. Nothing much of interest happened, which made Sparta so bored he started talking to Saphira and Amara about how their day was going.


By the time we got back to the Golden Globe, we bored, tired, and we ached in places we didn't know we had. Brom and Eragon had their talk about where the Bleach of Death had been taken, that Galbatorix was coming, and that the Ra'zac were in Helgrind.

Eragon was suggesting taking the place of the two slaves that sent supplies to the Ra'zac, but we interjected "If you just want the Ra'zac dead, we can easily annihilate Helgrind. If you want to do it yourself, the best we can do is pin them down."

"I'd rather do it myself." Eragon said quietly, so we nodded. "I can't believe it; we actually found them."

"The toughest part is yet to come, but yes, we've done well." Brom agreed. "If fortune smiles upon us, you may soon have your revenge and the Varden will be rid of a dangerous enemy. What comes after that will be up to you."

"Maybe a holiday?" Kevin smiled.

Surprisingly, Brom smiled back. "Maybe."

We chuckled and moved around on the blanket that we'd claimed. Kevin and Sparta closed their eyes and fell asleep as Brom extinguished the candles that gave us enough light to see by. Driscol stayed up, keeping watch over the room.

Out of the darkness, a tendril of thought met with our centre head's mind. "Ghidorah, are you still awake?"

After identifying the foreign mind as Eragon, we said "Driscol here. Kevin and Sparta are asleep. Whaddya need?"

There was a pause before he replied. "I was talking to Saphira, and I suggested going back to Carvahall when this is all over. She snapped at me, saying that I can't go back to my previous life, and that I had to decide what to commit to."

"Uh huh?"

"So I said that I'd side with the Varden."

"Right."

"So, I was wondering, what is it like to leave everything you know behind?"

We thought for a long time at his words before Driscol replied "It's sad at first. You keep comparing things to what it's like back home, but you eventually get used to it. Having someone who you know well being along for the trip with you helps. You meet new people, make friends, and see some cool stuff."

"But you get used to it?"

"Yup. You get nostalgic every once in a while, but apart from that, you should be good."

"And the people that you leave behind?"

"You miss them. Sometimes you bump back into them, like Amara did with us, and you have a party. But you do miss them. That's normal."

Eragon hummed thoughtfully, then sighed and turned over on his side and tried to get some sleep. Although that left us pondering our own situation, and the people we'd left behind. Sure, we'd… made contact… and we were putting off seeing what happened. Angela's words about how heartbreaking getting rejected was, we were terrified of seeing what the aftermath of our comment was. Still, we didn't even have the means to check the chat. There was no internet here.


The next day, and we were in the backpack again. We were really starting to hate it, but it was necessary to keep Eragon safe. We didn't sense anything out of the ordinary until about midday, where the young Rider encountered… the slave market. It was a pit of hopelessness and misery. If Eragon was angry about it, we were positively incandescent with rage as he forced himself to walk away. Dark clouds started to form over the city. Thunder boomed like drums. Lightning flashed and angrily speared through the sky.

"This is the sort of thing I could stop by fighting the Empire." Eragon thought. "With Saphira by my side, I could free those slaves. I've been graced with special powers; it would be selfish of me not to use them for the benefit of others. I f I don't, I might as well not be a rider at all."

"If we didn't have to guard you," Sparta snarled, "we'd have attacked them right then and there. They… were… selling… children…"

"Do you have slavery where you come from?" Eragon asked us curiously.

"No. Everyone has the right to be free." Kevin growled. "To us, this is barbaric."

By this time Eragon had reached the cathedral, we'd hacked the mind of the slave traders to discover where they were keeping the slaves, and we now had an excuse to be absent when the Ra'zac attacked Eragon and Brom.

"Amara, be prepared to take off on our mark." Driscol said, creating a link to our cousin. "We're entering the cathedral. We have a plan for how to be out the way for Brom's death. We need you to airdrop us something too."

Our cousin quickly responded "Right, what's the plan?"

"Once Eragon leaves the cathedral, we'll reveal ourselves and grow to our regular size, creating a distraction. We'll head to where the slaves are being kept and bust them out. You might want to help us get them out."

"And what do I need to airdrop?"

"The sick beats."

"Roger that."

As we sensed the smell of the Ra'zac entering the building, we said "They're here. Take off now." before cutting the connection.

Eragon spun around and roared in fury, the sound echoing throughout the cathedral as he drew his bow and fitted an arrow to the string. We took that as our cue to leap out the backpack, growing to about the size of a lion and snarling savagely. Small bursts of electricity flaring around us and our two tails rattling like a snake's.

The Ra'zac were weird looking. Their general appearance reminded us of plague doctors from back when Earth was in the middle ages. They had long, pointed beaks, large eyes, and wore large, black cloaks. They carried long, leaf-shaped swords, and seemed to have a hunched back, although that was due to their weird biology.

At our appearance, they stepped back, then glanced at each other. Eragon didn't give them time to decide what to do. He fired an arrow, quickly getting and firing two more after that. The Ra'zac completely ripped off The Matrix and bent over backwards, the arrows sailing over their heads. Returning to their previous stance, they raced up the isle like cheetahs as a column of soldiers started marching into the cathedral.

Charging up our gravity beams, we yelled to Eragon "Go! If they found you, they can find Brom! Get outta here and warn him, we'll hold them off!"

"I will, but how will you hold them all off?!"

"Dramatically."

With that word, we increased our size again, rapidly becoming so large that our back hit the ceiling. As our eyes took on the glow they did when we were using our powers, we grinned savagely. We felt a tug in our gut, and thunder boomed outside as we burst through the cathedral's roof. The soldiers screamed as dust and masonry started falling down around them, the ceiling caving in as we reached our regular size, the stormy sky revealed in all its blazing glory.

"Cuz, now would be good." Sparta said as we advanced a step and growled, alarms trumpeting in the near distance.

No sooner had we said the words, our boom box fell through the massive hole in the ceiling. Kevin snatched it out of the air and set it on the floor, smashing the play button. As Twisted Sister's 'We're Not Gonna Take It' started blaring, we let loose with our gravity beams. Soldiers screamed as they were turned to ash, their now empty and melting armour clattering to the floor.

The Ra'zac screeched in terror and ran, their cloaks flapping behind them like wings trying to take flight. Unfortunately, we couldn't kill them. They were important to the storyline. However, Sparta took great satisfaction in setting their cloaks on fire as they ran away. Getting rid of the last of the soldiers, Driscol grabbed the boom box, and we took to the skies, bursting out of the cathedral and zapping it with our two outer heads.

Once we were satisfied that it was actually on fire, we set off towards where the slaves were kept- a long, low, wooden building on the outskirts of the city. Amara circled high above, keeping a lookout for any soldiers closing in on us, or Eragon and Brom. After we landed, we deposited the boom box and the three of us ripped off the wooden roof. We threw it over the city wall, revealing something that was quite on the mark for what we expected prisons in the Wild West to be like. A bunch of metal bars forming cells without any furniture in them except for tiny bowls that must have been for food and drink.

There were quite a lot of people here, about 200 from our quick count, most of them packed into the cells like sardines. As they saw us, most of them screamed and got as far away as possible from us, but a few others fell to their knees, gazing up at us. We didn't bother about their reactions, just worked on ripping the cages out of the ground and throwing them away with loud clangs.

As we liberated the last group, the mass of people crowded to the back of the room, apart from one kid who we guessed was about five or six. He laughed as he ran towards us, and we lowered our three heads so they were touching the ground. We smiled at him as a woman who we guessed was his mother ran after him. At least there was one person here that didn't think of us as a monster.

He stopped about a meter in front of Driscol, who kept stock-still and maintained eye contact with him. Tentatively reaching out his hand, the kid gently touched our centre head's nose and started rubbing it, making Driscol purr in satisfaction.

"Golden Guardian?" he said uncertainly.

"Yes. That's us." Driscol said, making the crowd of people gasp as the kid's mother reached him and pulled him back. "We're getting you all out. Follow us, and keep close behind. We don't want to lose anyone."

As Driscol introduced us, Sparta found Amara and asked. "Cuz, which way is the city wall closest to us?"

"As the crow flies, or by being forced by the streets?"

"Streets, we guess. We don't want to flatten anyone innocent."

"Okay then. Turn right, and then go that way until you reach the second left."

Amara-nav at the ready, we grabbed the boom box and lumbered off, the people behind us running to keep up as we crashed through the narrow streets. As we were on the city outskirts, we didn't encounter any resistance until we turned onto the long street that ended with a closing gate. Between us and the gate were about fifty soldiers, hardly an obstacle.

Charging up our gravity beams from Driscol and Sparta, we used our wings like shields, protecting the people behind us from a volley of arrows. A lot of them bounced off, but a few of them stuck in, although our rapid regeneration quickly pushed them out and closed the wounds. Then we returned fire.

Three blazing bolts shot down the street, striking the lead soldier and chaining through him, into his comrades. The whole battalion was quickly reduced to ash and melting armour, allowing us to advance to the gate and smash through it, the archway collapsing as we surged through it like a tsunami against a sea wall.

Clearing the rubble with swipes of our mace-like tails, we turned around to address the newly liberated people. "This is where we leave. We've got you out. It's up to you to decide what you all do next."

"But where do we go?" Someone asked.

"We'd recommend Surda." We said. "There's a war brewing between the Empire and the Varden. If you want to stay out of it, go to Surda, or if you want to strike back against the Empire, find the Varden." We quickly glanced at the sky. "Whatever you do, don't stay here. Head into the forest for now and set up a temporary camp. We'll cover your tracks."

There were a lot of nods, and as we took off, there was a cheer of "Golden Guardian! Golden Guardian!"

"Y'know, I could get used to that." Sparta grinned. "Golden Guardian… it's a unique title to us, not to our form."

"I honestly enjoyed that." Kevin said, still holding our boom box in his jaws. "It was both fun, and we did a good deed."

"Yeah," Driscol agreed, "but now Galbatorix definitely knows about us and we clearly showed what side of the Rider War we're going to be on. We revealed ourselves to the Ra'zac, set fire to the cathedral, and disintegrated a few dozen soldiers."

"How do you guys feel about that?" Kevin asked. "This was the first time we took a human life. I fell like I should be guilty, but I'm not."

"I enjoyed it." Sparta said bluntly. "They would have tried to kill us, given the chance. Like Han, we just shot first."

Driscol sighed. "I dunno. I feel that it was justified, even if I'm not proud of what I had to do. We defended our charge, and we dispensed some liberty. It's unfortunate that we had to do what we did, but the good that came from it outweighs the bad."

"True." Kevin sighed. "But doesn't it feel like we're losing who we are? We've just proved that we're fine with killing people, and we've killed urgals, who are also sentient. I don't like where we're going at this rate. Will we be fine with killing our friends if we give into our instincts like in our fight with Felix?"

Sparta thought about the situation. "It won't come to that. If we think that we're slipping towards what our form is like, we can always get the Elders to send us to an empty realm or knock us into cryosleep. There's always options."

Kevin nodded. "True."

Amara settled into formation beside us as we began to up the storm, rain beginning to pelt down by the bucket.

"Great weather we're having today!" She joked, making us look at her in a deadpan.

"Just for that, we're going to make it hail."

"You can't do that- OW! Argh! Stop it!"

We laughed as we flew on, our cousin cursing us for our 'stupid weather powers'.


Snapshot #2B (Sorry! I forgot to do one last week!)

"Okay, so how do you wanna do this?" We asked Jacob.

"We're gonna need me, you, a camera, and someone who's good with CGI."

"Should we bring Darius on board?" Kevin asked. "He could pass as a Shadow with some special effects."

"We could. I guess having more of us is a good thing. Then we can film in more realms too."

"So do you want to film the lyrics before or afterwards?" Sparta asked.

"Before. Then we can concentrate on choreographing how we're doing the action scenes."

"Right. We'll go find a camera." Driscol said.