Author's note: I'm not exactly happy with how this turned out. I had to delete two fairly large sections and rewrite them as the first was a bit too mushy in regards to emotions, and the second had Cade being a bit too efficient at killing urgals. And then there was a lot of emotional stuff I needed to get right, which took a long time. Sorry for the slight delay, too. I usually update on the weekends, but it wasn't to be this time. Still, enjoy the chapter!
With thanks to my Patrons:
Regal Eagle
In response to reviews:
dragonauthor: That death... brilliant. Using the weapons of mass destruction, I see. But as he's shy, I'd recommend changing the 'too quick to trust' to being slow to trust instead. Apart from that, it's all good.
Blaze1992: As shown in this fic, if two or more Plainswalkers look after the same universe, they have to work with each other to preserve the timeline. There aren't duplicates of the same realm, but there can be different versions of it. For example, there's Transformers. G1 would have a separate realm from Beast Wars. As for the timeline, it doesn't reset or anything. As for preserving a Plainswalker's loved ones, the Lore I have for this wouldn't allow that. That's all I'm willing to reveal for now. I've got to have some secrets!
Man4God: Thanks! Glad you're still managing to follow my stuff!
MoosHeadFamLit: Well, she would have her own room, and she'd be free to decorate it how she wants, but I doubt that neurotoxin would be very effective against the other robots aboard the Infinity. TESTING would be required.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Inheritance Cycle. Everyone knows this already.
Edit as of two hours after publishing: Well, for some reason, the italics were gone first time round. Oops.
Big thanks to Wizz from the Dis-cord server for helping me out with the more emotional stuff and for beta reading.
Chapter 26: SABOTAGE!
The next day, we woke early and decided to head back to Alagaësia before anyone else woke up. We were more than a little concerned about how the events of today would work out. Eragon needed to be captured, but Saphira and Murtagh needed to remain free. As we packed our bags, we thought about the problem. This would be difficult to pull off in a way that we'd be seen as the good guy…
As we landed next to the departure pool of rift, we saw that a few other Plainswalkers were gathering there, saying their farewells to each other before dropping through the kaleidoscopic orange material one by one. Apparently, it was considered bad manners to go through side by side, so a small queue had formed of people waiting to go through.
Sparta yawned widely, all of his teeth showing as Driscol tried to plan and Kevin ate a croissant.
"So what are we gonna do?" Kevin asked, his tongue flicking out and running around his mouth, picking up flakes of pastry.
"I think I have a plan." Driscol said. "If we send Amara out on patrol, then stay behind to look after the others while we're human-sized, then we can… I dunno. Do something."
"We'll wing it." Sparta said.
The rest of us looked at him in shock.
"Was… was that a joke?" Kevin asked.
"If so, it was exceptionally bad." Islingr commented.
Sparta growled, looking away from the rest of us. "Well, I tried to be funny. Everyone sees me as the guy who loves destroying stuff. I just don't… I... No, ignore me. I'm being stupid."
Driscol glanced at Kevin, then gently nudged Sparta. "Hey man. You can talk to us. We're you, after all."
Sparta looked at the floor. "It's… I'm not sure how to put it into words."
Kevin hazarded a guess "You don't want to be put into a box, do you?"
"No." Sparta sighed, thankful that someone understood what he was trying to say. "I want to be judged on my personality, but after I blew a few things up, everyone sees me as addicted to destruction. It's like… no offence to you Kevin, but you got our pranking side, and everyone thinks that you're the stupid one."
Kevin just laughed and pulled a face at Sparta, crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out. It may have looked ridiculous, but it did the job, and Sparta let out a snort of amusement.
"So it seems you're fine with that." our right head chuckled. "As for you Driscol, you seem the most like we did while we were still one person. I can look at you and say, 'That's Cade, but who are the other guys?' That's what annoys me. I don't feel like how I used to. As well as the fact that I can't place what I got from us."
Driscol's eyes widened and he wrapped himself around Sparta in a neck-hug. "I'm sorry. I'm not sure how I can help, but I'm sorry."
"Come on guys, it's our turn!" Kevin said, interrupting the moment. "May I?"
"Are we going to regret this?" Sparta asked.
"Nope!" Kevin said happily.
"Then… fine." Driscol sighed.
Kevin grinned as we began to charge towards the departure pool. At the last second before we fell in, we jumped, wrapped ourself into a rough ball, and yelled "CANNONBALL!"
As we emerged into the realm of the dragon riders, trails of the rift clinging to us as we stowed our key in one of our bags, Islingr asked "What is a cannonball?"
Sparta's eyes gleamed. "A cannon is a weapon. Cannonballs are ammunition. You remember when we had that mental battle?"
"And I was heavily defeated, yes." Our mentor said. "Why?"
"The vehicles that had the… well, I guess you'd call them long sticks, those are called tanks. A cannon does the same thing as a tank- shooting a projectile a long way- but it's nowhere near as mobile. A cannonball is just that. A ball of metal shot out of a cannon."
"Then why did Kevin yell 'cannonball' when you jumped into the rift? There were no cannons there."
Driscol sighed. "It's a thing that people say when they jump into swimming pools and curl up into a ball."
"But… why?" the confused Islingr asked. "What purpose does that serve?"
"Fun?" Kevin offered as we shrugged.
"Hmm." was all Islingr said.
It was another few hours before we found Eragon, Saphira and Murtagh on the outskirts of Gil'ead. Spiralling out of the sky, we landed beside them, our massive wings beating up a small hurricane of dust.
"Ghidorah." Saphira said happily.
"Hello." We replied, bobbing our heads in greeting.
"Could you be more mindful of how you land next time?" Eragon complained, rubbing at his eyes.
"Sorry." Kevin apologised before Driscol intercepted him, as he was snaking towards Murtagh with his tongue out, planning to lick off the dust.
"Amara should be here soon." our center head reported.
"Status report?" Sparta asked.
"What?" Eragon asked.
In perfect sync, all three of us groaned, shook our heads, and looked to the sky in exasperation.
"Honestly," we complained, "it's not that hard to understand what we're talking about."
As everyone just looked at us blankly, we rolled our eyes and probed Eragon's mind for everything he'd done in the last few hours, leaving everything else untouched. We were in and out as fast as, appropriately, lightning, although he still let out a surprised cry and raised his shields as we exited.
Kevin blinked as he realised what we had just done. "We just hacked his mind. Deliberately."
Sparta's eyes widened. "We're... slipping."
Driscol nodded, fear evident in his face. "We're losing ourself… Are we still the same person we started out as?"
Sparta deadpanned at him, then used a wing to indicate himself and Kevin.
"You have a point." Driscol said. "But… morally, I mean. Are we still the same guy we were when we…" glancing down at our company, he switched to "were exiled?"
"I don't know…" Kevin said, his voice quavering.
For the rest of the day, all three of us thought about it, unsuccessfully.
Islingr tried to help by saying "I did not know you while you were a human, which I still have trouble believing, but you three are a very good dragon, even if you don't even have the vanity as a hatchling."
That boosted our mood slightly, but when Amara turned up in the afternoon, we asked her whether we were the same person as she knew us as. She scratched the chin of one of her heads before gesturing for us to follow her. We did as she asked, trailing a good distance away from the camp, but keeping it in sight.
Amara turned to face us, choosing three of her heads to lock eyes with ours while the other two kept a lookout for any danger. "Cade. Neither of us are the same as we were back on-"
"Cut the bull****!" Sparta snapped, tired of us questioning ourselves so much and just wanting a straight answer. "We ****ing know we're not the same! We're a three! Headed! Dragon! Now-"
"And I'm a five-headed one!" Amara interrupted. "A literal ****ing goddess!"
Angry at being cut off, we began yelling in earnest. "WE HAVE IT HARDER THAN YOU DO! WE HAVE EACH OTHER TO DEAL WITH! WE CAN'T GO A DAY WITHOUT GETTING INTO A SMALL ARGUMENT WITH OURSELF!"
"AND I'M CONSTANTLY TERRIFIED OF LOSING MYSELF TO MY INSTINCTS!" Amara countered. "GROW UP, CADE! YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE WITH ISSUES! I DON'T WANT TO END UP GOING TO SLEEP ONE NIGHT AND NOT FINDING MY SANITY WHEN I WAKE UP! I MISS MY OLD BODY AS MUCH AS YOU MISS YOURS, BUT AT LEAST YOU DON'T HEAR ME MOANING ABOUT IT ANYWHERE NEAR AS MUCH AS YOU DO!"
"YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WE'RE GOING THROUGH!" We roared in rage. "WE KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE REDUCED TO THE DESIRE TO KILL, RIP AND MAIM! AND WE'LL BE DAMNED BEFORE IT HAPPENS AGAIN! YOU DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH WE HATE THIS BODY! WE HATE BEING THREE PEOPLE, AND WE WANT OUT!"
"REALLY?!" Amara yelled sarcastically. "I HONESTLY HAD NO IDEA… APART FROM WHEN YOU TELL ME THAT EVERY SINGLE ****ING DAY! I HATE MY FORM TOO, AND I WISH THAT I COULD BE HUMAN EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF EVERY DAY, BUT I'M LEARNING TO DEAL WITH MY SITUATION! GET OVER YOURSELVES AND STOP ACTING LIKE A WHINY BRAT!"
We kept on yelling at each other, our conversation and gestures getting wilder and wilder. Energy from both of us began to build up and up, and we weren't surprised when small gravity beams started flickering over our golden scales. However, we didn't expect for a shining, white light to envelop Amara.
She glanced down at herself, then at us in panic as the light intensified. "Cade, what's going on?!"
"I don't know!" Driscol yelled as we stepped back and shielded our eyes. "It's not us!"
After one last flash, the light died, leaving us blinking the afterimage out of our eyes with a growl of annoyance. As our vision refocused, we looked around. Everything was the same as before, with one exception. No Amara.
"Cuz?!" Kevin called out, his head swivelling around. Sure, we'd just been damning each other to hell, but when one of the participants of the vocal battle vanishes, you tend to look for them.
"Here…" came a quiet groan. "Everything feels… wrong."
We looked down, and almost jumped out of our skin in shock. Near our feet, tiny in comparison to us, was a small… human.
"A… Amara?" Driscol asked, stunned.
The human groaned, cracked open her eyes, and winced from the sunlight. "Cade? Is that you three up there?"
We mutely shrunk down to our cousin's new size and took in her appearance. She had the same face that she had in her first life. Amber eyes, auburn hair, and the small scar below her right ear from when we'd accidentally hit her when we were having a swordfight with sticks when we were six. Apart from that, there was very little resemblance. She was covered with armour, but in the gaps, we could see that she was incredibly muscly, and quite a bit taller than she had been in her past life. She would easily be able to go up against an urgal and win.
Speaking about combat, we looked over her armour. It wasn't on Skölir's level, but it wasn't anything to sniff at either. It was a combination of silver-coloured plates of metal and red scales that were identical to those she had as a dragon. Amara's five heads had also transferred to this form, although they were metallic and built into the armour; one on each shoulder, one on each forearm, and one acting as her helmet, the lower jaw having split to allow her face to show.
She also had a sword lying by her side. Again, it couldn't be compared to Omen, but it wasn't that bad either. It was a long, silver blade, probably a double-handed weapon. On it's pommel was a red D20, silver numbers set into it. On the blade itself, the words 'Natural 20' were written in red.
So, Amara was somehow human again. We weren't sure how it had happened, but we were undeniably jealous of her. It was only then that we realised that we'd been staring at her for about five minutes, and she was checking her new form out.
"Oh… my… God." Amara said in shock, raising her arm and flexing her fingers experimentally.
We could see the tears of joy in her eyes as she hugged herself in ecstasy and rocked back and forth. For us, all we could do was feel envy, which led to guilt. We should be happy that Amara's happy! Supporting each other was what family did. But when we thought back over what had just happened, it seemed cruel. We were having an existential crisis about our morals and had asked Amara for help. In response, she'd unloaded on us, and then had her problems magically solved by whatever had just happened! That was nowhere near fair!
We snorted angrily and started walking back to the campsite, growling lowly as we grew back to regular size.
"Cade, wait!"
Trembling with rage and bitterness, we tuned her voice out, trying to keep control of ourself. She was human again. As to how, a vague scrap of information floated out of the back of our minds that Tiamat had a human form. Amara had loved springing that on us when we were still human. Had her wish to have her old body again been granted by some ability that had kicked in as we were screaming at each other? Well, that was obvious. Yes, it had. And we had no such power.
We stopped in our tracks and clenched our hands into tight fists, blood roaring in our ears as we tried not to lose it and blow everything around us up. We weren't just a teenager who could strop around, throw something at a wall and vent. We were a powerhouse of destruction. If we lost control here… Well, there would be no stopping us.
We weren't quite sure when Saphira had joined us, but we definitely welcomed her presence.
"Ghidorah, what ails you?" the blue dragoness asked.
"...Jealousy." Kevin tried to say evenly, although it came out as a loud growl.
"Of who?"
"Amara." Sparta said, spitting out a gravity beam which turned a tree to dust.
Our cousin's name was almost a trigger for us to kill everything that mov- scratch that, just everything. And we were scarily close to following it, our muscles having briefly spasmed out of control, and gravity beams charging in our mouths.
Realising what we were doing, we let the sparks in our mouth die into nothingness and shook our heads, trying to cleanse them from the burning, consuming rage.
"I do not understand." Saphira said, cocking her head to the side. "Why are you three jealous of her?"
There were distant alarm bells ringing in the back of our mind. This conversation was moving into dangerous waters.
"She has this… ability." Driscol said. "We're jealous of that."
"An ability besides the ones her five heads possess?" Saphira asked in surprise. "What is it?"
Hmm. How should we take this?
Sparta shook his head. "If we say what it is, we will completely lose it. And last time we lost it, we became three people, which we still hate."
"Would we become nine people if we went crazy again?" Kevin wondered.
Driscol and Sparta both glared daggers at him.
"If you've jinxed us…" Driscol started.
"We will never forgive you." Sparta finished. "Being three people is hard enough! Nine… and we'd be headed towards a mental asylum."
Though she didn't understand everything we'd said, Saphira still understood the context of the joke, and she let out a draconic laugh. The simple act lifted our mood a little, but we were still burning up inside. The fires of our anger had been dimmed somewhat, but we were still wound tighter than we felt was safe for our charges.
"You should probably go." Driscol sighed. "We don't trust ourselves at the moment, and if we're around the others, we can't promise that we won't explode at them."
Saphria looked put out, but she nodded in understanding. "Will you be with us tomorrow? We should be on our way to the Varden by then."
"Depends how homicidal we feel." Sparta said dryly.
It wasn't intended as a joke, but Saphira chuckled. "Very well. And if you do not appear, I shall make sure that you are following us rather than moping around."
"Moping around?!" Kevin asked incredulously. "When have we ever moped around?"
Despite being a dragon, and having very limited knowledge of human facial expressions, Saphira pulled off a very good deadpan.
"Right, where did you learn that?" Sparta demanded.
Saphira spread her wings and prepared to take off. "From you."
With that, she beat her wings and soared off into the evening sky.
"Y'know," Sparta said to the rest of us, "we've accidentally given ourself an excuse to allow Eragon to be captured."
The corners of Driscol's mouth twitched upwards, but he still had a scowl on his face. "So we have. Doesn't mean we're not still ****ed off, though."
We slept by ourselves that night. Wearing Skölir. As per our usual arrangement, one of us always stayed on watch, keeping a lookout for any danger. Therefore, it was no surprise that we flew awake when Saphira roared in alarm a few hours before dawn. We were ready and raring to bring the pain.
The fight was in full swing by the time we arrived, rock music blaring from our boom box. Eragon had already been taken, Murtagh was almost overwhelmed by the urgals, and Saphira was surrounded. Charging into the fray, we began shooting into the mass of enemies, turning them to dust.
There were screams of panic from the urgals, but we didn't bother with battle cries. This was kill or be killed. Gravity beams fired, claws slashed, teeth gleamed, and blood spurted. Our tails slammed into the ground, shockwaves sending both limp and living bodies flying. Then we either blasted, consumed or diced our enemies. No-one would escape our onslaught.
The carnage was over within minutes. Nothing remained of our opponents except for ashes, the occasional club, and piles of dust. Doing one last sweep of the perimeter, we let the charges in our mouths fizzle away, and turned off the music as blood dripped from our armour.
Glancing around the camp, we saw that a lot of stuff was wrecked. If the horses hadn't been tied to a tree, they would have bolted long ago. Most of the contents of the saddlebags were spilled over the ground. A lot of the food had been stomped into the muddy ground, the waterskins were now empty, and any other possessions were either damaged, or broken beyond repair.
Murtagh seemed to be okay, so we turned our attention to Saphira. She was frantically looking for Eragon, mentally yelling his name as she charged around the camp. We could hear the fear and sorrow in her voice, and it was utterly heartbreaking to witness.
As she finally came to a stop, she threw back her head and howled in complete misery. "Eragon is gone! My rider! The partner of my heart! My Little One! Captured! Taken! I'll rip the ones responsible for this apart! I'll bathe my claws in their blood! I'll destroy everything in my way to get him back!"
We wrapped a wing around her and hugged her tight. Usually, we didn't have this much physical contact with other people, but Saphira needed the support.
"We're going to get him back." We promised her. "No matter what happens, we'll make sure you two are reunited, then we rain death from above on his captors."
Saphira clung to us, not saying a word, but we could feel her gratitude and relief. Tears trickled from her eyes and down her face, dripping off onto us.
We waited a few minutes for Saphira to collect herself before releasing her and asking "Are you going to be alright?"
"When I have Eragon back, I will be." She replied.
"Don't worry, we'll rescue him." Driscol said confidently.
Saphira nodded, so we turned our attention to Murtagh. He was leaning against a tree, recovering from the fight we'd just been through.
As he saw us looking at him, he said "Thanks for the save. I don't think that I could have held them off much longer."
We nodded, and were about to reply before remembering that we wouldn't get through to him with his barriers up. Growling in frustration, we wrote out 'Permission for mental communication?' in the mud.
Murtagh read it and scowled. "Why? You can write out what you need to say."
'This is slow and ineffective.' We wrote out. 'Eragon is gone. We need to plan to get him back.'
He read that and shook his head. "My mind is the only sanctuary I have that hasn't been violated. I won't let anyone intrude in it."
'Stubborn jackass.'
He actually laughed when he read that, but he still shook his head. "No. I'm sorry, and I understand that this hinders things, but I absolutely refuse."
We growled and wrote out 'You're lucky we're a nice person. We have the strength and the ability to get into your head, but we respect your decision. Though this will be a nightmare to communicate on our part.'
"Sorry." Murtagh apologised again. "So, do you have a plan?"
'Not yet. We're going to see if we can see where Eragon's been taken. In the meantime, gather everything together and prepare to move. The urgals know we're here now.'
Murtagh nodded and began packing up as we switched to scent and began to track Eragon's trail. Saphira followed us as we tracked the young rider by scent, and the footprints of the urgals that had taken him. Their size was a benefit in that regard, as their weight made the prints deep and easy to follow.
As Saphira and we reached the edge of the trees surrounding Gil'ead, we slowed our pace, and let our vision do the work. The urgals were talking with a group of soldiers, and… Durza.
The Shade was a sight to behold. He was tall, and stood with an aura of power about him. He only wore black clothes that wouldn't restrict his abilities in combat, and a black cape that fell to his ankles. His face was as white as chalk, his hair was blood-red, and his eyes were crimson. His teeth were shark-like, which mush have made eating a pain, and he carried a sword that rested in a sheath at his hip. He also had this… aura to him that screamed of death, violations of nature, and made our connection to the rift tingle. Perhaps it was because a Shade was some kind of watered down version of a Shadow?
The urgals threw the limp form of Eragon to the ground in front of the group, and then brought out another, cladded in armour that we recognised as Amara's human form. Naturally, our idiotic cousin had gone and got herself captured. If we were in her position, at least we'd have been able to use Omen proficiently enough to defend ourself.
At the sight of Eragon, Saphira started to move forward, but we put out a hand to stop her. At her questioning stare, we pointed out Durza.
"That's a Shade." Sparta scowled. "We can't break cover and rush them without him managing to kill Eragon."
Spahira growled but held back, and we could tell that she was cursing the Shade to whatever pit of hell he'd crawled out of.
When she finally spoke again, she asked "Who's the other human?"
Just to check, we squinted at the armoured figure, who'd just had her helmet torn off. Yep, that was Amara, even though there was a trickle of blood dribbling out the side of her mouth.
Growling in anger, envy, and at our cousin's stupidity, we sat back on our haunches as the soldiers picked up the two limp figures and began to carry them away as the urgals left. Durza quickly reached the head of the column of soldiers, and they vanished behind a row of houses.
"You may recall our jealousy over a certain ability our cousin has?" Driscol asked.
Saphira wasn't dumb. She connected the dots, and her jaw dropped open. "You… she... I…"
"Yeah." Kevin said, glaring after where Durza had disappeared. "That was Amara. And she got herself captured. Great going, cuz."
Saphira was still stunned. "I… that can't be true."
"Can't it?" Driscol asked. "We can grow and shrink. Shape-shifting isn't too far from that, is it? Besides, Werecats exist here, and they can easily transform from one form to another."
"The longer I remain in your presence, the less I believe anything will surprise me." Saphira said, shaking her head in disbelief.
Sparta smirked. "Trust me, when you learn where we disappear off to every now and then, you'll be so stunned that you'll never get over it. Now let's get back to Murtagh and tell him what we saw. He knows more about Gil'ead than we do, so he'll have a better plan than we can come up with."
Saphira nodded, and the four of us slunk away to plan our rescue.
It took two days and a wait into the night before we were ready to strike. Murtagh had bribed someone to leave a certain door open, allowing him and us to get into the prison's kitchens. Yeah, we shrunk down to our human size and went with him, a large and baggy cloak hiding our draconic features. To our immense dislike, that made us look a lot like a Ra'zac, but if we wanted to help, we had to grin and bear it.
Saphira was acting as our lookout as we entered the complex's kitchen, keeping an eye on the movements of the guards. Islingr was hidden where we'd left the two horses, although she was keeping an eye on things as best she could. As Murtagh walked to the next door and checked if the corridor beyond was empty, we tore off the cloak, revealing Skölir in all its glory. Our crimson armour flickered in the candlelight, seeming more like a liquid than a solid that we were depending on to save our life if the need arose. Which it probably would.
"Ready?" Murtagh whispered.
We put on an extra few feet of height before drawing Omen, extending it to full length, and flicking through the tracks on our boom box. The plan was simple. We'd act as a distraction, drawing as much attention as we could from Murtagh, who'd go down to the cells and free our companions. Saphira would be their getaway dragon, and she'd pick them up before we returned to our regular size and laid waste to the city. Well, the parts of the city that only had soldiers in them. We didn't want to hurt anyone innocent in all this.
As we selected our track and swung the boom box onto our back, we nodded to Murtagh. He swung the door open, and we charged through it with three roars of challenge, the sound of Sabotage blaring so loud that it shook the floor. We had been very tempted to go with Breaking the Law instead, but we thought that this was more appropriate. We were sabotaging Alagaësia's timeline as much as we were sabotaging Durza's efforts to extract information from Eragon, Arya, and probably Amara too.
The first soldier we encountered barely had time to scream as we blasted him into dust with a gravity beam, then kept on moving. Turning a corner and breaking through a wooden door, we stumbled into some kind of great hall in the middle of a cloud of splinters. As it turned out, the large room was full to the brim with soldiers, most of which just stared at us in shock. Well, the distraction part of our plan was working. Now for the fighting.
With a disturbingly gleeful set of roars, we laid into them by shot and sword, gravity beams and Omen flashing as we cut them down. Each of the soldiers represented our problems, fears and troubles. Getting shafted into this body? Arm sliced off Omen, then bludgeoned with a tail. Getting split into our multiple consciousnesses? Run through the chest, then had his head torn off by one of our jaws. Amara getting a human form? Arms and legs torn off, then mauled and left to bleed out. The worry that someone would eventually learn of our knowledge of Alagaësia's future? Triple gravity beams to the face.
Before long, we were left with the dead, the dying, and those who were crying and hugging themselves in fear. We let them live, passing on to the next room as blood dripped down the walls, and the screams of the dying sang along to our hard rock.
We kept on moving through the complex, killing everything in our way. If it had a weapon, we killed it faster. Part of our mind kept on nagging at us that this was wrong, that we were lowering ourselves to the level of a murderer. However, another part of us said that this was right, that we this was justified, that we should paint the place red with blood. And we listened to it.
We did a couple of loops of the upper floors before deciding that we'd culled all resistance there and went down to where the cells were. There were a few corpses of soldiers, arrows sticking out their chests, but we paid them no attention. We charged down a couple of corridors and round a few bends before we finally bumped into Murtagh, who was having trouble with a locked cell door.
We sheathed Omen and padded up to him, tapping him on the shoulder as blood dripped from Skölir and onto the floor. Murtagh jumped, spun around, then couldn't seem to decide whether to be relieved or terrified.
"Oh, it's you three." He said, taking in our bloodstained, yet completely unharmed appearance.
We nodded and gestured at the door.
"It's stuck." Murtagh confessed. "As soon as I touched a key to it, the lock melted itself shut."
Gesturing for him to move aside, we looked through the tiny barred window and into the cell. Eragon smiled weakly as he saw us, but we could see that he was weak from having to miss out on food and water due to the drugs in them.
"Thank you... for coming…" He said weakly.
"No problem." Driscol smiled. "It's our job to look after you. Besides, we like you. Friends look out for each other, don't they?"
Eragon nodded, and we told both him and Murtagh to step back as we looked at the door. A tail strike would just dent it if it had magical protection on it. Ripping it out might be possible, but we didn't know if that would destabilise the wall… hang on. The door was metal. The wall was stone. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was easier to break.
After telling Eragon to move as far away as possible, we lined up out tails to the section of wall next to the cell door, then pulled them back. In a quick motion, we span around, our tails swinging through the air like flails. When they hit the wall, they crashed through it like it was made of duplo. Bits of stone flew everywhere as a cloud of dust puffed into the air. We dissipated it with a beat of our wings, revealing a large hole in the wall and a coughing Eragon.
"You alright?" Kevin asked him.
"Yes, I'm fine." Eragon said, coughing from the small dust storm.
"Good." Murtagh said. "Now let's find Amara and get out of here."
"So you know about that?" Eragon asked.
"Duh." Sparta said, rolling his eyes.
"I know about it, but I'm still working on believing it." Murtagh said, shaking his head. "Magic seems to have no bounds to its uses."
"So you saw her?" We asked, fixing all three of our heads on Eragon.
He nodded sadly. "We shared a cell for a time, and she explained who she was. I didn't believe her at first, as I was under the influence of those magic-blocking drugs at the time. Then she started talking about things that only she and I had done, and that removed any doubt I had."
"And where is she now?" Driscol said. It sounded more like an order than a request for information.
Eragon hung his head. "I don't know. He took her away after I refused to answer his questions. I… I don't know what happened to her after that."
Our eyes narrowed. Even though we were still ****ed at Amara, she didn't deserve to be… well, we presumed she was being tortured by Durza. We just didn't know. And after knowing what would happen the entire time we'd been here, that was disconcerting.
"Okay, we're altering the plan slightly." Sparta said, Eragon translating for Murtagh's benefit. "You two, get to somewhere where Saphira can pick you up. We're going to find Amara, bust her out, and then retreat."
"But there's an elf here!" Eragon said. "I saw her! We have to rescue her!"
Oh yeah, we needed to liberate Arya too.
"Fine." Driscol said. "New plan, we stay together and get both our cousin, and the elf."
"But you said that it would be better if we split up!" Murtagh protested.
"That was before we had to get out three people instead of two." Sparta said. "If you each carry someone, then it's harder for you to defend yourselves. We can easily take care of anything that comes our way… except maybe the Shade."
Eragon and Murtagh glanced at each other and nodded.
"Then let's go." Driscol said, and the five of us charged off to find Amara and Arya.
It was actually ridiculously easy to find the two. All we had to do to find her was search for their minds, which to their credit, were holding strong. Knowing that breaking into their heads would take too long, we simply went in the direction we could sense the two, as they were close enough to be in neighbouring cells.
On the way there, we took a slight detour through the guardroom to get Zar'roc, Arya's weapons, and Amara's sword and armour. Eragon scoffed down the scraps of food that had been left there and put on his sword as we ripped a banner off the wall and bundled Amara's armour and sword up in it. Murtagh took possession of Arya's weapons.
Honestly, we were surprised that they were still here. Arya had been held here for as long as Saphira was alive, so just over six months. If we were Galbatorix, we would have tried to reverse-engineer elvish weaponry to give the troops under our command a better chance in battle. However, Galbatorix wasn't a logical thinker, thank goodness, so Arya's blade and bow were still here.
After a minute or two of rest, we pushed on, heading towards the minds of Amara and one that we guessed was Arya from its large difference to the human mind. There was still little to no resistance any more, which we found suspicious. Was Durza planning something?
The two humans paused as we reached an open doorway, gasping in horror as they surveyed the next room.
"Gods…" Murtagh said in horror.
"Did the Shade do this?" Eragon wondered, evidently fighting the urge to throw up.
Poking our heads past them, we looked around the room. Mutilated and broken bodies lay everywhere. Blood stained so much of everything that it looked like a paint bomb had gone off. Tables were overturned and smashed, and there were blackened marks over the floor and walls. In short, it looked like something from a horror movie.
Driscol quietly answered Eragon's question. "No. This was all on us."
Both humans looked back at us in half terror, half shock.
Sparta glared back at them. "This is a kill or be killed situation. We're not proud of having to do this, but it was necessary for this mission to succeed. Now come on. We don't want the Shade finding us, do we?"
That got them moving again.
Eventually, we reached the cells holding Arya and Amara. The walls here were reinforced with some kind of thick metal, and only the tiny, barred window showed the prisoners inside. Given that the walls would take more effort to break down than we were prepared to expend, we used our gravity beams like laser cutters, blasting through the lock on Arya's cell in seconds. The door swung open, and the lock fell to the floor, revealing the elf.
She seemed semi-aware of what was going on, her dark green eyes looking at us in a daze before passing on to the two humans. Moonlight from the windows fell over her face, bathing it in a cool silver as she collapsed against the stone slab she was lying on. She smelled like a pine tree, reminding us of when we had christmas back- No! Mission now, nostalgia later.
Arya was shackled to slab, although we quickly cut through the binders on her wrists with our beams, and Eragon gently picked her up, his face enraptured by Arya.
Kevin prodded him. "Hey! Concentrate on the rescue, not the rescued!"
"But she's hurt…"
"We can tend to her when we get to a safe location, lover boy!" Sparta snapped at him. "Come on, get your head in the game!"
The young rider blushed as red as our armour before shaking his head to clear it. "Sorry."
As we left the cell, Murtagh slipped Arya's sword into the sheath on her back, and slung her bow over her shoulder. Then it was Amara's turn to be freed.
We cut out the lock on her cell and almost punched the door off its hinges to get inside. Unlike Arya, our cousin was suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the room by black chains attached to her wrists. She had a ragged tank top clinging to her sweaty chest, and camo trousers sporting several rips and tears on her legs, but we could very clearly smell blood and burnt skin.
There was something else there too- a scent that brought back bad memories and unimaginable pain. An acidic waft that promised eaten flesh and wounds that would close slowly. The Bleach of Death. Seithr oil.
Wide-eyed, we quickly blasted away the chains. Amara groaned as we stood vertically and took hold of her as best we could without injuring her. Her amber eyes flickered open without much strength, and she squinted up at us.
"C… C… Cade?" Her voice was husky and cracked, and we barely recognised it as hers.
Holding her limp body like a baby in our arms, we gently stroked at her hair, tears forming in our eyes. Guilt and regret crashed down on us as we held her. How could we have let this happen!? Jealousy? No. That was a lame excuse. Spite was much more accurate, but it didn't quite fit. Arrogance? Yes. Arrogance. The moment we'd left her, she was near helpless, re-learning how to control her human limbs after being a dragon for so long. She had called after us for our help, but in our arrogance we'd squashed that request flat. Up until now, we'd thought that she'd deserved this situation. We thought she'd deserved to be captured, deserved to be tortured. And we had been so wrong.
Amara had just unlocked a new ability that we should have congratulated her on. Instead, we looked at it and we had only thought about how it could have benefited us if we had it. Would having a human form really be such an advantage? Our three consciousnesses would have made it a living, breathing prison. We would have fought ourselves for control, battling it out for who got to be in charge. In our current form, we each had a place to be, and a job to do.
Kevin was the guy in charge of our mental defence, and the one who always tried his best to lighten the mood when he could. Sparta was the warrior, willing to fight our enemies with brutal strength and overwhelming power. Driscol was our mediator, the one who kept us in line and on course, balancing out Kevin's easygoing segment of our combined nature, and Sparta's aggression. Together, we were just as powerful as we were as a single entity, if not more. We just had to stop complaining about how the situation was unfair and take advantage of it. Did we miss our old body? Sure. Would we go back to it after our revelation? It was hard to say it, but no. We were the One Who Was Many. It was time to live up to that name.
Looking down at Amara, we quietly cried "When you came back to us at Christmas, we said that we'd be there for you. And just look at us now! We failed you! Our jealousy blinded us! Our arrogance and selfishness made us forget that we were the ones who should be keeping you safe! We're a scaly asshole who put our needs above the people we were supposed to be looking after! The people we were supposed to support and care for! And we let this happen to you!"
"It's… okay…" Amara wheezed before letting out a racking cough. "I… may not… look it… but I'm… nowhere near… dying."
"But this is our fault!" we sobbed, our tears dripping onto our cousin's weak form. "We're sorry, cuz! We're so, so, sorry!"
"It's…" Amara tried to say before we cut her off.
"Don't you dare say that this is okay!" We shouted. "We allowed this to happen!"
Amara smiled weakly. "Argue later… escape now. Shade… coming…"
We nodded, trying to stop the flow of tears. "Just hold on, cuz. We'll get you out and fixed. Just hold on."
Amara nodded weakly before her eyes closed, and she fell into a light sleep, her mental defence collapsing. Our six eyes narrowed as Kevin got to work layering our defences over our cousin's. We may be to blame for letting Amara go through so much pain, but it was Durza who'd caused it. He was the one who'd burned her. The one who'd spilled her blood. The one who would have made her scream in pain as Seithr Oil was dribbled into her wounds. The Shade may have been killed by Eragon in the books, but now… we were going to be his reckoning.
Leaving the cell, with Amara in our arms, we saw that Eragon and Murtagh were both staring at us, and the wet lines on our faces.
"Are you three… crying?" Eragon asked.
We nodded wordlessly.
"Well, there's a first for everything." Murtagh said. "Now let's go. Concentrate on the rescue, not the rescued and all that."
Kevin smiled weakly. "Now that sounds like advice from someone who knows what they're talking about. Come on, let's go to the roof. That'll make Saphira's life easier for pickup."
The humans nodded, and together we began a search for some stairs.
After we eventually reached the roof, we took care of the few remaining defenders on top of it and waited for Saphira to land.
As she alighted at the far end of the roof, Sparta said "Come on, let's get out of here before the Shade shows up."
A cold chuckled filled the chilly night as we were halfway to Saphira. "I'm afraid it's far too late for that."
Turning, we saw Durza at the other end of the roof, sword in one hand, a ball of black fire in the other. Three growls of incandescent rage forming in our throats, we passed Amara to Eragon before unsheathing Omen and preparing to fight, flipping down our visors. We would fight to protect our charges, and we would fight for our cousin. Durza would be begging for his own tortures to be used on him when we were finished.
"Ghidorah, don't be fools!" Eragon yelled. "That's the Shade!"
"We know." Driscol said evenly. "Saphira, go. We'll hold him off."
"But Ghidorah!" Saphira protested.
"GO!" Sparta yelled. "Take the others to safety! Amara's life is in your claws!"
Saphira looked like she wanted to protest further, and we would have argued back if Durza hadn't thrown his fireball at us and charged. We surged forwards to intercept the Shade, the sphere of dark flame hitting Skölir and vanishing into our armour without any effect. We clumsily swung Omen as Durza's eyes widened in surprise, but he parried our strike easily enough.
"GO!" We yelled again, blocking three quick thrusts and a swipe.
As we heard the sound of wings unfurling and a large rush of air, we arced Omen down in a silver slash. Durza raised his blade in both hands to block it, and he succeeded, our weapons meeting with a resounding clang. The shockwave jarred us a little, but we held our ground, pulling back and readying ourself for the Shade's next strike.
They came strong and fast, but our defence held. Durza was both strong and fast. However, so were we. We met every blow he threw at us, and even when he moved so fast that we almost missed it, Omen was there to block his sword.
We were feeling pretty proud of ourself until we got overconfident, and the Shade easily disarmed us with a flick of his wrist. Omen went spinning away through the night sky, and Durza stabbed us through the chest. If it wasn't for Skölir, we would have been shish-kebabed on his sword. We easily could have survived it, but the Shade didn't need to know that.
Swinging both our tails at Durza, we then dodged his next blow by rolling to our left and mentally reached for our sword, saying "Omen, come to our hand."
To our immense satisfaction, our sword did just that, rocketing out of the darkness, through the Shade's stomach, and into our outstretched hand. Durza screamed as we retreated, then used magic to heal himself as we took a few steps back and analysed the situation. We weren't skilled enough to take Durza in a swordfight, but if we used every advantage we had, we could easily win.
Durza, charged towards us, swinging his sword in a horizontal arc. We blocked his attack single-handedly, his pale sword clashing against Omen's shining silver with a reverberating clang. Then we used our other hand to punch the Shade in the stomach, and the tables turned.
Durza flew backwards at the force of our strike, but he landed on his feet in a long slide and yelled a word in the Ancient Language. Once again, whatever he was trying to do had no effect, and we used the opportunity to blast him with a gravity beam. Durza tried to dodge it, but lightning travels at a third of the speed of light, so there was no chance he'd be able to evade our attack. He roared in agony as the golden ray struck him, and that would have been the end of him if we had used full power. Well, he would have dissipated, not died, but still. Nearly the same thing.
As we finished firing, Durza roared in agony, and we were happy to see steam curling off his now charred and deformed face. He kinda looked like Palpatine after the sith lightning, except with the addition of third degree burns and one less eye.
"You will rue this day, beast!" Durza yelled, throwing his sword to the side and preparing to use magic. "Your puny attacks won't stop me! I'll have that Rider, kill the-"
We gladly used the opportunity to blast him again, this time in the stomach. Durza screamed as we put a little more power into this one, and he dropped to his knees and began contorting in pain, his mouth opening in a silent scream.
Ending that beam, we drew closer, grabbed Durza, and hoisted him up to our eye level. Then we hulked out. Sheathing Omen, we grabbed Durza by the feet and began beating him into the roof of the building, giving him no chance to regain his senses or retaliate. Slam, slam, slam, shake, slam, punch, roar, slam, slam and let go, kick through the now very fragile roof. Then we used a gravity beam in it's telekinetic mode to pull him back up through the hole.
The three of us snarled in the semi-conscious Durza's face, and he actually whimpered in fear.
"The next time we meet, we won't be so merciful." We growled. "Eragon told you that he was the Death of the Shadows. He was wrong. That's our job description. Have fun in respawning in agony, mother****er."
With that, we tore off both of his arms with sprays of dark fluid instead blood, and with one of us yelling "AND I AM SPARTA!" we kicked the Shade off the roof. He fell, screaming a cry of pain that doubled in volume as he hit a hard cobblestone floor. A cloud of darkness billowed around the remains of his body, and with a shattering cry, he vanished, taking the cloud with him.
We took to the skies, roaring our victory to the world as we grew to our preferred size and did a victory lap of the city. Our proclamation echoed loudly in the dwindling night, and we gave three parting roars of triumph as we did a celebratory loop de loop. Still, Durza had underestimated us, and he hadn't bothered to use his skills in mental assault in this battle. Next time, we had a feeling that things would go differently, but for now we relished in our victory and happily soared through the slowly brightening sky. A new day was dawning, and we'd got our cousin back. That was all that mattered.
Snapshot #6:
"What. The. ****?" The Dark Tigershark said as he looked at the completely out of place object in bewilderment.
A voice came out of it. "I wanted one of these for six years Gabe. And today, I have one."
"Zach, get out the ball pit. NOW."
The head of a T-Rex burst out of the sea of coloured balls. "Bazinga." Then it vanished underneath the surface, and the entire ball pit started to churn as Zach moved through it.
"Zach, don't make me come in there!"
"Bazinga."
"ZACH!"
"Bazinga!"
"THAT'S IT!"
"Noooooo! OW! Gabe, stop! OW OW OW! OFF THE TAIL!"
