Author's note: Blimey! Apparently, fight scenes get reviews… hmm. Anyway, this is the final chapter of Searching For Lost Gems, and I hope you all enjoyed it!

In response to reviews:

ArchAngel319: Yes, this badassery will happen in Trial By Lightning, and thanks!

Wizzer96: Bewilderbeast bowling… yeah, that's pretty much what happened at the end. Will I do more side stories? Probably. Depends if people are interested in them.

Br2nd66: Yep. Full sized, and fully overpowered.

MoosHeadFamLit: Err, yeah, pretty much.

Blaze1992: IT'S A CATEGORY 6!

Disclaimer: I don't own HTTYD or the IC

Chapter 7: Going home

As the dismembered Bewilderbeast cut out the sound of battle, the world was filled by my jubilant roar of victory.

"I did it, I did it! I'm somehow massive and I did it!" I sang, doing a little celebratory dance which shook the ground.

"Cade, how the **** did you do that?!" Jacob said from somewhere far, far below.

Looking down, I looked around for my friend and eventually found him on an icy outcrop halfway between Gem and me. Going down on all fours, I lowered my heads to be on his level. Actually, I only lowered my centre head, and even then, I had to turn it sideways so I didn't go cross-eyed. My grins widened as I truly saw how gigantic I really was. If he was curled up, then Jacob would be the size of my eyeball.

"Which part?" I asked him smugly.

"The growing massive and wrecking everything?!"

I pondered that for a while. How had I had such a massive growth spurt? I'd felt hopelessness, fear and guilt before it was burned away by anger, rage and determination. Then there was something like the Rift, and after that, power.

"Has there ever been a case of a Plainswalker gaining power through the Rift?" I asked Jacob. "Not just the new form and multiverse travel, but actual powers?"

My friend's eyes widened. "Oh… my… God… You're a Riftheart, aren't you?"

"A Riftheart?" I echoed.

Jacob nodded. "They're exceedingly rare. Exceedingly powerful too, and if you truly are one of them, then you'll probably be able to deal with a Shadow all by yourself."

"Awesome," I decided, "but start from the beginning."

Jacob glanced over his shoulder before saying "I don't really know much about the concept, but Gem's hurt. You knocked her out real good so she couldn't hurt herself, and she's breathing, but she's bleeding and I think she's got a few broken bones, and we both saw how thin she is."

I nodded seriously, excitement forgotten. "I'll take her back to Locostral. If you could get my stuff out here so I can load up and go, I'd appreciate it."

"You got it." Jacob said before flying off towards one of the nest's entrances.

I straightened up and glanced at Gem. Like Jacob said, she was injured, but she seemed to be stable for now. However, she bore no sign of having her key, which was worrying. Even though only the owner of the key could use it, it was our only safe way to Locostral and back.

As a small cloud of dragons came into land, I walked over to the remains of Drago's army and rolled the Bewilderbeast's bleeding carcass off them. The smell of defeat was almost overpowering- a mix of sticky blood, the shattered musk of wood, cold and wet flesh, and the metallic sting of iron rolling over smashed weapons and legions of bodies.

And yet, there wasn't the smell of a key. Plainswalker keys had a resonant hum to them- a sense of rightness that stood out like a sore thumb. That sense of rightness melded with the golden metal and the Tabasco sauce smell of the Rift, creating a warm, spicy aroma that every Plainswalker that had a sensitive nose loved.

That prompted me to search the shattered remains of the fleet. I stood upright and waded into the freezing cold, dark, stained sea, sniffing at the wrecks. I found nothing. In the hope that the key had sunk, I dipped one of my heads underwater and had the unpleasant sensation of water going up my nose. The transparent membrane that I had slid down over my eyes, and I began another search, although I quickly realised that it wasn't here.

I surged my way back to shore. Rising back onto dry land, seawater cascaded off me in waves. Jacob was waiting out on the shoreline, and my bag of stuff was lying next to Gem, and the rock music had stopped playing. Shaking myself like a dog to try and dislodge the remaining salty water, I stomped out onto the bloodstained beach.

"What were you doing in there?" Jacob asked.

"Taking a swim." I joked, striding towards our Clan Leader before saying "Actually, I was looking for Gem's key. It's not in any of the wreckage or in the ocean."

Jacob had to run to keep up, but he managed to pant out "Gem will have a better idea about where it is than we will. Let's just get her back home."

"Home?" I echoed softly. "You really think of Locostral as home, not Earth?"

My friend shrugged. "I'm gonna steal this out of Thor: Ragnarok and say that home is not a place, it's a people. And Locostral is where my people are. I have friends there- family, actually, and I will fight tooth and claw to keep that family together. Don't you feel the same way?"

"Kinda, I guess." I said, shrugging. "I don't exactly think of you guys as family, but as friends, I see your point. And you've seen how hard I'll fight to protect the people I care about."

"That's true." Jacob said before suggesting "Wanna take a selfie with me? It's not often that we get to go to other realms."

I smiled from all three of my heads. "Why not?"

In the end, getting the shot was harder than it sounded, but we finally snapped one. It showed me with three happy grins and doing a thumbs up with my left hand while I held up Jacob with my right. He was holding out the large camera we were using with a paw and he had to curl his tail around to hit the capture button, but he wore an excited, gummy grin. In the background was the remains of Drago's army, and the upside-down head of Enslaver with his tongue stuck out. Fun times.

As I gently deposited Jacob back on the ground, I thought about whether we'd done a good job. We'd found Gem, which was our main objective, and I'd inadvertently saved Stoick, which prevented Hiccup from becoming Chief of Berk. Ripples would become waves. Unfortunately, Jacob and I had also alerted the people here about Plainswalkers, or at least, some of them. Even so, they'd spread the news, and Gem's job would get a lot harder. Or maybe it wouldn't, given that she seemed to watch from a distance most of the time.

I was brought out of my thoughts by a loud groan. Looking down, I saw that Gem was weakly opening her eyes and squinting up at me.

"Cade?" She asked feebly. Her voice sounded cracked and parched, like she hadn't drunk anything for a long time.

"Hey Gem." I said happily. "How are you feeling?"

"Crappy. My everything feels broken." she said before asking "What… what are you… doing here?"

"We came to get you." Jacob said, climbing onto our Clan Leader's head so she could see him. "It's been around a month since you last showed up to a Gathering, and we were worried something had happened to you."

"A… month?" Gem questioned, her eyes narrowing weakly. "But I saw you guys… three days ago."

Jacob and I exchanged worried glances.

"What's the last thing you remember?" I asked gently.

There was a pause before Gem said "I left Berk… to check in with the White-Tusked King. I found the nest… stayed there a while… then began the flight back. Then everything… goes hazy for a long time. There are some brief flashes of awareness… trying to resist something, maybe… but I don't remember much."

"You got captured by Drago's Enslaver." I said gently. "That thing managed to get inside your head."

"It did?" Gem said. She let out a chain of curses as I nodded, before asking "What… did it make me do?"

"For the most part," Jacob began, "we have no idea. We're at the nest now, after Drago tried to take it. He launched you as part of a counterattack when Cade started wrecking everything. The big guy tased you before you could do any damage though, so you don't have anything to worry about apart from where your key is."

"Oh… I know where it is." Gem assured us. "So, you came here… to make sure I was okay? Did it take you a month to… find me, or what?"

"Actually, we all got extremely worried about you when you didn't show in Locostral, but we didn't come after you until a couple of days ago." I said sheepishly. "Sorry."

Gem rolled her eyes. "Better… late than never. Now… is it just me… or did you grow?"

"He's grown, and it was awesome!" Jacob proclaimed happily. "Cade obliterated Drago's army, knocked you out, and then fought the Enslaver all on his own! There was a bit where the armoured dragons were swarming him, and then he was like 'Sike, assholes!', and let loose this massive burst of lightning! And when the Enslaver came out the water, they went into beam-lock! And when Cade burst out of the icy cage that the Bewilderbeast put him in and he turned gigantic! And then he…"

Jacob kept on going on to Gem about my awesomeness, and for the first time, I could see that they had a sibling-like relationship. Gem was the big sister, listening to everything that Jacob said, and Jacob was the younger brother, eagerly sharing everything that we did. It was warming to watch, but it also made me feel a little cold, knowing that I was cut off from my relatives.

I didn't want to rain on their parade, but I looked Gem over again and said "I'm sorry to cut this short, but if you haven't noticed Gem, your bleeding, probably have a few broken bones, and look as thin as a rake. We need to get you back to Locostral, pronto."

Gem nodded and started to get up with a grimace before I gently pushed her back down. "You shouldn't be walking around. We don't exactly know what happened to you, so I'll give you a lift."

Reluctantly, the green dragoness sighed. "Fine. Just don't… bring this up… in the future."

"Gotcha, Boss."

"And don't call me that!"

Chuckling, I lowered myself to the ground, allowing Gem to crawl onto my back. It must have looked weird, but it worked, and that was what mattered. I gently rose to all fours, carefully making sure that my passenger was okay.

"Can I get a ride too?" Jacob asked cheekily.

I rolled my eyes and said "Just this once." which made him squeal happily and leap aboard.

As I rummaged through my bag for my key, a voice asked "So you're leaving?"

I continued searching for my key, but focused one of my heads on the speaker. Hiccup, who was hovering on Toothless a decent way away.

"That's the plan." I confirmed. "Gem will probably be back with you in a few weeks, but I doubt that you'll see me or Jacob again."

"Well, you never know." My friend said. "I might request a transfer from the Elders eventually. Then I could hang out here."

"But your realm… needs you." Gem said, focusing on the blue-eyed Fury. "And I won't be able… to put up with your pranking 24/7."

All three of us Plainswalkers chuckled, but I could sense the tension coming from Hiccup.

Glancing away from him, I said "You probably think I'm a monster, don't you?"

Hiccup didn't reply, but that just gave me the answer to that question.

I shrugged. "Thought so. I did what I did because it was better than what would have happened otherwise, and I don't regret that. Being a Plainswalker is filled with hard decisions. You can't always find a clean outcome to events, but it may be the best of bad options. If I hadn't fought, then-"

"I'll explain it… when I come back." Gem said to him, interrupting me. "I'd also appreciate it… if you could ask your people to keep quiet about me. Knowing that there's other realms out there… and there's people there… might be too hard for your people to handle."

Reluctantly, Hiccup nodded. "I'll tell them that. I'm not sure if Dad will agree, but I'll certainly tell him."

"Well... that's the best I can ask for." Gem muttered.

Finally finding my key, I lifted it out of my bag. Somehow, it had scaled itself up so that I could still hold it comfortably, and it gleamed in the sunlight. However, before I could use it, Toothless screeched at me, so I opened a mental channel to him.

"Me want to ask you to tell Night-Rider that me love him like a nest-mate." He said quickly, fearing that I'd go before he could get the words out.

I smiled, and dutifully relayed the message, making Hiccup's eyes widen. He looked down at Toothless, who looked up at him happily, and gave him a big hug.

I was about to turn the key before I realised that there was someone that I needed to say goodbye too.

Contacting the White-Tusked King, I said "Drago's dead, and so is the Enslaver."

"That is a relief." The WTK replied happily. "And what of the enslaved dragons?"

"The ones in the traps were freed." I replied, "but the armoured ones that fought for Drago are dust."

"That is a shame, but I am glad that the army did not breach my home. You have my gratitude."

"Thanks, and this is also goodbye, I guess." I said.

"You are leaving?" The Bewilderbeast asked. "Then I presume that you have found your friend."

"Yup." I said, popping the p. "We've got Gem, and we're bugging out."

"Then I thank you for your help, and I promise you that if you ever return here, and need my assistance, then I will gladly grant it. May the winds blow in your favour."

"And in yours." I replied, before broadcasting on all channels. "Prepare for Rift in five, four, three, two, one!"

With that, I grabbed hold of the Rift's savage power, thrust my key forward, and twisted it. I grabbed hold of my bag of stuff in my left head as the massive orange vortex roared into being. With one last look at the battlefield, the dragons and their companions gathering down the beach from us, and Hiccup and Toothless, I surged forward into the familiar orange of the Rift.

Bursting through the arrival portal, everything was business. Jacob sped off to find an Elder and some medics, and I stayed with Gem. There was a large amount of shock from those who turned up about my newfound massiveness, but I told them to take care of Gem first. Amid her protests that she could walk there, my Clan Leader was loaded up on a maglev truck and was taken to hospital as Jacob and I returned to Mount Bluepeak after promising to see her tomorrow.

When I said that we returned to Bluepeak, what I actually meant was that Jacob went inside while I laid out on the snow, propping my three heads near the large, panoramic windows that gave a view out over the city and acted as an impromptu entry/exit point for us. I was now way too big to fit in, and I wasn't going to chance the large cargo lift for fear of it breaking.

Jacob did have the decency to open the windows so I could prop my heads inside, and my necks were long enough so I could rest my three noggins on the sofa. My friend turned on the TV and we just laid there, not really watching it.

After a long, comfortable while, Jacob eventually said "I'd call that a job well done."

I hummed in acknowledgement. I wasn't exactly happy with some of the side-effects that we'd caused, but we'd got Gem back, so that was mission complete as far as I was concerned.

Yawning, I said "Wanna take tomorrow off?"

"Definitely. Maybe the day after that too."

"Don't we have a Gathering then?"

"Think so."

A pause.

"Hey, do you want a hot chocolate or something?"

"God, yes."

"I'll go look for the jumbo marshmallows."

The next morning, the first thing that I heard was an electronic voice saying "Look at the pair of you. Please tell me that you didn't get wasted last night."

Opening my eyes, I saw Elder Abraxus standing next to the cargo lift, his arms crossed and his single eye coloured a warm green.

"I'm not a fan of alcohol." Jacob grumbled from under a pile of blankets piled on the sofa. "That would be my dad you're looking for."

"And I'm not old enough to drink." I groaned tiredly. "And unless this is life-threatening, please let me go back to sleep."

"Well, this isn't exactly life-threatening yet, but it might be in the future."

Blearily, I made a motion for him to go on before looking for something caffeinated to drink.

"First off, congratulations. You guys definitely did better than I did when I first went to a realm that wasn't my own."

"Why, what happened?" I asked, slamming a shipping container sized kettle on its dock and fumbling the switch on with one of my tongues.

"Well, it was in the middle of the Clone Wars, so not well. I lost both of my arms."

"I feel for you, Sir." Jacob moaned from under his mini-mountain. "Not even being able to give the finger to whoever did it must have been hard."

Abraxus chuckled. "You can drop the 'sir'. I'm not as much of a fan of formality as my fellow Elders are. Anyway, secondly, I bring news. Gem's been fixed up, but she has broken a few bones and needed masses of stitches for her cuts, so the medics are keeping her down in the hospital for now, which she isn't too happy about. She also suffered a large electrical burn-"

"That's my bad." I interrupted. "Knocking her out was the alternative to breaking the Bewilderbeast's control over her, and I'm rather inexperienced on that front."

The Elder nodded and continued. "Anyway, she should be released in the next few days once the quartermasters have rigged up a frame to ensure that she can walk without knocking one of her bones out of alignment. I'm also here to collect a report from you two. What exactly happened?"

Not wanting to talk about it, I sent my memories of the last few days sans Jacob's explanation of his backstory to Abraxus.

After a brief pause, he said "You've just dumped the write-up of the thing onto me, haven't you?"

"Pretty much." I smirked.

"You sneaky *******." Abraxus complained. "Fine. But I'm going to put the picture I took of you two up on our segment of the internet to get revenge. And finally, I need to talk to you about how you got this big."

"He has been putting on weight for a while." Jacob joked, not at all worried by the prospect of an embarrassing picture in return for getting out of doing any work. "A few pies too many, and this is what happens." Abraxus and I both ignored him, so he said "Okay, okay. In all seriousness, I think that he might be a Riftheart."

The Elder's single eye turned from a warm green to a surprised yellow. "Really?"

"Yup."

Abraxus looked me over again, then something flipped out of his arm and scanned me. I recoiled as a red beam shone over my faces and into my eyes, but the scan was over fairly quickly. A tablet folded out of the Elder's other arm, and he began prodding at it.

"You do seem to have the potential for it." He said eventually. "You have a large power store, and lot of Rachyon particles in your essence, and my data shows that your portals into the Rift are pretty much always stable."

"Excuse me, Rachyons?" I asked incredulously. Surely that was too stupid of a name to be a real thing. "Is this like that Star Wars **** about Midichlorians or whatever?"

"Kind of." Abraxus said, waving his free hand in a 'so, so' gesture. "The difference is that, unlike that garbage, this stuff is in your soul rather than your bloodstream, and is definitely magical. Rachyons is basically a pun combining the Rift, and Tachyons, which are particles that go faster than light. The more you have, the easier it is to create your portals into the Rift, and the easier finding a path through it is. If you have enough, you can even bend the Rift to do interesting stuff, and that qualifies you to be a Riftheart."

"So… a Riftheart is just someone who can manipulate the Rift really well?" I said.

"That's the general gist of it." the Elder confirmed. "We have about thirty Rifthearts at the moment, but they can all do a lot of cool stuff. They often use the Rift itself as a weapon, venting its energy out, or sucking their opponents half into it before cutting the connection. In comparison, you changing your size isn't that impressive, but you're definitely using the Rift to reshape the body that it outfitted you with after it caught you from limbo."

"Could I… like, shapeshift if I tried hard enough?" I asked excitedly.

Abraxus shook his head. "No. You can only shapeshift if your form lets you, like if you're an Animagus or something. The Rift gave you this form, and if you try to make it change you again, its power will just burn you into a charred husk. There's a reason why it only changes your form while in limbo, and that's because it would kill you any other time, so it can only act when you're dead."

"Well that's terrifying." I muttered.

"Stick to changing your size for now." Abraxus reassured me. "Testing yourself for if you're a Riftheart always ends badly. If you are one, then you'll unlock different powers from the Rift as you go. A couple of us aren't Rifthearts, but we can still use the Rift for some abilities, so like them, I'll put you down as a potential Riftheart. However, if you ever find yourself using a power that you can't explain from your form, find me. I'll put you into training at once."

"Right." I said as the kettle finished boiling. "But could you at least tell me how I can shrink and come back indoors."

"Just focus on drawing the Rift into you, but not to create a portal. You should only have to think about the size you want to be, and you should change to be that big or small."

"Okay then. Here goes nothing."

Closing my eyes, I pictured myself at my regular size, and reached for the Rift. There was the familiar sensation of wrestling with it for dominance, but it was over fairly quickly. Opening my eyes again, I found myself stood in the window at my regular Smaug-like size.

"Now that's cool." I said before coming inside and closing the window. "I sense a long, long, list of possible pranks in the future!"

The End! I hope you all enjoyed this quick dive into another realm. This was fun to write, as well as a nice change of pace from Trial By Lightning. I'll go back to writing that now, and I thank you all for reading my work!