I narrow my eyes at Seeque, peeking out from behind my hastily grabbed pillow. At first I expected her laugh to be some sort of declaration of war, but I'm met with quite a surprise. She doesn't even seem to notice her slip up. Even more, the laugh sounds nervous.
I put the pillow down and study her face with a furrowed brow.
'She's blushing. Why is she blushing?'
"You know you look like clown with shoddy makeup on right now, don't you?" That isn't what I was meaning to say. That hardly even makes sense.
Her blush is replaced with a scowl and she talks half way in a growl. "About that thing I have to do before I can leave..." She looks down and fiddles with her hands.
"I don't know what you are about to say, but it isn't funny." I harness my power, and get ready to switch myself out with a moose or kitten or something when she drains the power from me.
"You can't go. I have to do this." She sounds sad, and her face is downtrodden.
My muscles flex, getting ready to fight my way out when she slaps something on my wrist. There is a blinding blue flash, but when I recover my senses nothing has changed. Seeque is sitting back in her chair and the room is the same. I look at my wrist...
"You didn't." Whatever is the opposite of relief floods my body.
"I had to."
"How is it even possible!?" I start to panic.
"So you can already feel what it does?" She blows up her cheeks and then lets the air out slowly. "That old "has-been" as you called him has more power than you can know."
"But this is not funny. Like really not funny. Please tell me it isn't..."
"Permanent? Yup. Its a mod."
"But you can't mod other people!"
"He can."
'No. I don't like this. The longer I stay in this world the worse it gets.'
She sees my dumbfounded and lost expression and then moves to finish me off, "Yup, we are--"
"Don't you dare say it. That'll make it real." I snarl with a gleam in my eye. She smirks and then continues.
"We are stuck together until you becom a jester. These matching mod bracelets that dad made for us give us an invisible tether. Until you become a jester we cannot be more than twenty feet away from each other."
'She said it.' I take a deep breath. The bracelets that she is reffering too, on my left wrist and her right, are more like tattooed bands of what looks like two bands being weaved together.
"Why? Why would he do this?" If I was in my right mind I would never think to question someone with a mind so perverse as the jesters, but with the events of the last five minutes I am most definitely not in my right mind.
"He thought it was funny." Seeque gave a depressed shrug. "I think he wants us to be some sort of sparring partners or something. He says you need more training and that I need the refining that comes with teaching another."
I jump out of my bed and barge through the door, "Let me at that old creep and I'll show him what's funny."
I take about three steps out into the hallway when I'm jerked back by my right arm and I hear a grunt from in the room.
"Tethered, remember idiot?" I hear a very angry Seeque yell.
'This... is going to take some getting used to.'
"Well, get your big royal butt in the hallway so I can go kick your dads behind!"
Seeque walks out the door. "You honestly have no idea how much I would like to have a word with that man, but we can't. We have orders to depart right away. Our first mission."
"Mission? What mission? Let me go see that poopy head father of yours."
"Focus!" She slaps me clean across the face. "I suppose I forgot to mention that we are now a considered a special military unit that is going to be deployed on my fathers orders, for training and to help out the military."
"But what about my jester training?"
"I'm offended. Judging from how last night went you don't think I'm qualified?"
"Sure, you're strong, but your no jester."
"We'll see about that, funny boy." Seeque grabs my hand and my vision fades to purple. Is that her idea of funny? Fading to purple instead of black?
When my vision comes back online we are standing in the middle of the field still holding hands. The moment I notice it I yank my poor hand free from the lioness.
"Why'd you grab my hand, you weirdo?"
Seeque rolls her eyes. "You are such a child. When we connect the hands that wear the bracelets we share the effects of our own powers, such as teleporting, and can even combine our power."
"Like I would ever share any of my power with you. Just wait until I get you into a modbreakers shop and I'm done with you and the jester."
Seeque bursts out laughing. "You- you really think that a mod breaker could break one of dads mods? Haaaaaa. You really are a funny one."
"Wait, you just laughed, but I didn't get any power from it."
She holds up her wrist in response.
"Of course it's that. So, since we are connected we can share power, but not give each other any? Ugh." Then I take a moment to look around for the first time since we teleported. I had gathered that we were in some field, but I didn't look past that because I was a little preoccupied. The field looks completely empty, but somehow I knew it wasn't. There was something going on here beyond what the eye can see. I guess that is what the jester sent us here for. Some military mision.
"So, about our mission..."
"Just wait a second and you'll see exactly what our mission is." Seeques face is grim and determined, seemingly waiting for something big.