"I thought I taught you better than this!" Lord Cassius shouted.

Crap, he's getting straight to the point.

"All of my precious time and effort went into raising you, and this is how you repay me?"

"Father I-"

"Don't you 'father' me!" He snapped, and Keefe noticed that his fists were clenched. "You decided to date a Dizznee."

"So?" Keefe asked, knowing that it was a risky move.

Luckily, Cassius didn't seem to get too angry from that. "By dating a male, you'll be ruled a bad match. You won't be able to continue the Sencen line. There's also talentless blood within him."

"Dex has an ability though."

His father took a step forward, using his height to be more intimidating. It worked a little bit.

"You know that he was just lucky to get one."

"Luck or not, he still got an ability." Keefe looked up at him and made eye contact, even though his mind screamed for him to stop. "At the age of fifteen, he's already been noticed by the Council. They'd already asked him to do tasks."

"It's only his ability that made him noticed. He still has little control over it, I would assume."

"But he's still got all the time to grow. He's already better than most technopaths. Besides, what does it matter if Dex was talentless? Timkin Heks was banished and talentless, but he still has his own place!"

This argument is going nowhere. He could feel his body shaking, and he had to suppress it, show no fear.

"Fine, his ability can be useful, I'll concede that. However, we aren't talking about the Heks family. You aren't dating his daughter. You're dating a Dizznee, a family with little reputation. They have triplets. If you want me to ignore that, I'll do so for now, because you won't budge. So we'll move on to you. You've been described as a powerful empath, and what have you done?"

Excuse me? My own accomplishments have nothing to do with this! He could feel the rage burning within him.

"I'm sixteen years old, father! I've helped save the entire planet on multiple occasions. Discovered traitors that you couldn't find, helped show the Council how poorly the people at Exillium get treated. Those are just a few of the things. Better question, what have you done for anyone? Because all it seems like is that you only care for yourself!"

Ice blue eyes pierced his soul, they were so cold it burned.

Don't look away. Not yet. Don't flinch.

He didn't flinch, not even when the arm at Cassius' side twitched, then raised into the air. All Keefe did was shift and hold an arm out to block the blow. That blow surprisingly didn't come.

"I am controlling my temper," his father said through his teeth, his arm going back to his side. "I want no mention of the technopath in this house. Now you will do what I say, before I do something that the both of us will regret."

Keefe gladly took that opportunity to leave. He really didn't want to be there any longer, otherwise it was going to get more tense. As he made his first step towards the stairs, his arm was tugged.

He bit back a complaint and turned around. He didn't bother hiding his annoyed look.

"I want your imparter for now. You'll have it back tomorrow," Cassius demanded, his other arm outstretched. "If something major happens, I will let you know."

What, so I can't talk to my own boyfriend today? Or my best friend?

Keefe sighed, but did as he was told. He went to his room and flopped on his bed. He didn't have the energy to do anything else.

"I mean, I was there, but how did all this even start?" Ro asked. "You didn't even bother talking about your relationship woes with me."

"It's not like you came up to me," he replied. "Then again, it has been a little more peaceful recently."

She threw a pillow at him. "Are you saying that I'm slacking?"

He gave her an innocent smile. "If I say yes, are you going to threaten me with your bacteria again?"

She grinned. "You know me too well."

He didn't know if she was intentionally trying to distract him or not. It kind of worked. "Y'know... about the bacteria..."

She gave him an unimpressed look. "Really? Usually, I'd say 'hell yeah', but I'm not dumb enough to make your dad even angrier."

"What, are you scared of him or something?"

She scoffed. "You're joking, right? The problem is that he's gonna take it out of you."

"Aww, you care for me!"

"Shut up."

"No."

She blindly reached over for something, and then held up the infamous jar.

"You care so much!" He continued to tease, knowing it was a horrible idea.

Without any other warnings, she opened the jar and picked up a creature with razor sharp nails. Then she flicked it in his direction.

Keefe was laying down at the time, but he sat up and backed away. He nearly fell over on multiple occasions, his limbs flailing wildly. Once he decided he was at a safe distance, he stared at it as it created a hole within his bedsheets.

"Oh great, a mess. That's surely gonna make my father calm down," he muttered.

"First off, does he actually care about your bedsheets? Second, I was distracting you."

"You're being annoying."

She scoffed. "I'm annoying? Oh please, I should be paid for having to deal with you!"

"With what? Lusters mean nothing to you."

She crossed her arms. "I'm demanding a bi-monthly payment. I'll go easy on you for now."

He shifted so he could bury his face in a pillow. "Oh no."

Ro could call something easy, but to the rest of the world, it was nearly impossible.

"Each payment is an elixir to prank my dad when I go back home."

He sprung up in shock, accidentally hitting his head against the bedhead. "That's it?"

"Ooh, you wanna pay me more? I'm down for that!"

"Wait!" He shouted. "I accept your original offer."

"That's what I thought."

"I'll give you the elixirs, alright? I was pleasantly surprised by you though. I expected some obscure object that would only be obtained by thievery or some other illegal means."

"I did tell you it was 'easy'."

Keefe shrugged, because if he argued, Ro was going to make more demands. "You love annoying me way too much."

"Who doesn't?"

He rolled his eyes, much to her delight.

"Y'know, you never answered my question. How did this all happen? Like... You and Dex. Keefex? Is that what I call you?"

He smiled at the mention of the team name. "That was our team name."

"Let me guess, you made it?" She deadpanned.

"Yeah, but this was a while back. Before we flooded Ravagog back. Oh, that reminds me, to get to one of the Black Swan bases, we had to go underwater. Dex and I ended up having to share a breathing mask."

Ro snorted. "Were they not able to supply you with enough?"

"Della snuck with us, so Dex had to make one double sided. I tried to pair myself with Foster-"

"Of course you did."

"-but Fitz decided that Dex and I should share it, and then Mr Formless somehow agreed. I have no idea how I tolerated it, especially since we were riding an eckodon. We had to hug each other the whole way if we didn't wanna drown."

She snickered and covered her mouth with a hand. "That is the best thing I've heard in ages! You've made a mistake, Lord Hunkyhair, I will never forget this. You will never hear the end of it, and neither will your boyfriend."

It took a moment to process the words. "F*ck! I'm an idiot!"

"It'd be so boring if you weren't a total dumb*ss. Now, what about your team name?"

"We wanted to punish Wonderboy while we gagged over Fitzphie. I said Keefex, he said Deefe."

Her laughing grew louder, and started to sound more like a cackle. "Deefe? That's stupider than Keefex! Such a lame name!"

"I told him it was lame. But you're laughing too much for my liking."

"Well, yeah. If I need to talk to the both of you, I'm just gonna call for 'Deefe'."

"Why do I do this to myself?" He grumbled. "I need to prank you."

"Fine, fine," she said lightheartedly. "Again, you never answered the question as to how Keefex happened. I mean, you cuddle together once and there's some staring, but it's all sudden. I mean wasn't he pining after Biana? And weren't you madly in love with Sophie?"

He nodded. "Yes to both. He comforted me after I got rejected, and he managed to put me to sleep with a massage. Then he ended up seeing me in a romantic light."

"And then that dare happened."

"Yeah, I'm surprised you never brought it up earlier. But yeah, that made me realize that Dex liked me. And the rest, you witnessed. I was unsure of my feelings, but I think right now, I can say that I do like him."

She clapped, once. "Beautiful! And you got together without having to pine for years, so I didn't have to suffer. Good on you for not being as oblivious as you can be. And then having the guts to actually confront him on his feelings instead of getting all confused."

"Does that actually happen?"

"You'd be surprised. You haven't lived as long as I have."

"And how old are you?"

It was something he only now realized he didn't know.

"I'm not telling you."

He pouted. "I tell you stuff though!"

"That's because you're a dumb*ss."

"But I'm fun."

"And you're fun," she agreed, to his surprise. He expected a snarky remark. "Now go to bed before I shove a sedative down your throat."

And there was the Ro that he knew. "It's seven, too early for this."

"I was joking." However, she looked more bored than amused.

"You didn't look like it."

"I mean, I'll do it later. So go do your thing."

He finally got up from the bed and grabbed some clothes and took a shower. After that, he laid in bed- after changing the bedsheets- some more before he got bored. And Rk decided to be unhelpful, as she didn't talk to distract him some more. All she did was hum some song she apparently learned in Ravagog.

When she realized that he hated it, she started humming it even louder. She smirked when he groaned and covered his ears. He was not going to be able to deal with this for a few more hours. He grabbed his bag from Foxfire and pulled out the homework- homework that somehow ended up in his bag despite the fact that he didn't attend class. The culprit of it didn't matter though, since it allowed him to not fail.

He skimmed over the work. Some of it was easy, so he dealt with it. He ignored the homework that couldn't be answered just by looking. He may have had some energy, but not enough to deal with all of that work. None of it was fun though, so he constantly took breaks where he just did nothing. Eventually, he gave up.

"Ugh, there's still too much time. I wish I had my imparter," Keefe whined.

"I could get that," Ro began. "But I don't feel like getting you killed. Watching you be bored is surprisingly entertaining."

"I hate you."

"No you don't."

"You're so mean to me."

"You deserve it."

Keefe crossed his arms and pouted. "Remind me why I'm paying you and not the other way around?"

"Because you agreed to it? Now stop being a baby."

"I am not a baby!" Keefe insisted.

His bodyguard strode over to him, and ruffled his hair.

"You look like even more of a baby now!" Ro smirked.

"If you help me look through my alchemy book for good pranking ideas, will you stop?"

"For tonight." She grabbed the book, and began flipping through the pages. He had to admit, it was a weird sight to see Ro read.

"Genderswap, losing voice, a lot of these seem to be lame." Ro remarked.

"And you have better ideas?" Keefe asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, but what's the fun in telling you, when you can experience it for yourself?"

Keefe sighed. "I'm done with you, good night."

He pulled the blanket over his head, and closed his eyes. Eventually, he did.

There you go SparklyMagix there's your chapter! No need to kill me

Yeah ik That the talk between Keefe and Cassius was short and disappointing (I'm physically incapable of writing long arguments) (also we get more of that later). But whatever, take the Ro and Keefe friendship, which I have missed out on because idk.

Also side note but it was my birthday on the 15th (oops I forgot to mention that), and it doesn't feel like I've aged, but thinking of my age makes me feel much less of a tiny child, even though I still am